Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

REGISTRATION OF CLUBS (LONDON) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Speaker: I have considered the scope and object of this Bill in the light of precedents, the representations of the promoters and the advice available to me.
The Bill is concerned with an important matter of public policy lying outside the normal functions of local authority administration, namely, the jurisdiction of magistrates' courts in and about the registration, renewal of registration, and striking off of clubs where intoxicating liquor is supplied.
The topic is one which has never previously been dealt with by Private Act.
The Bill affects the wide area and vast population of the whole administrative County of London and also, no doubt, the interests of many members and potential members of clubs who live outside the country.
The existing law is laid down by public general Statute, the Licensing Act, 1953, which itself contains provision special to the Metropolis.
The Bill does not propose to confer new powers upon the promoters or upon any other local authority. Its purpose, and its sole purpose, is to repeal the substance of the relevant public general law and to put in its place a different code more acceptable to the promoters which would confer upon magistrates' courts a new power to refuse the registration of a club upon successful objection by the police or the Common Council of the City of London or a Metropolitan borough, as the case may be.
Having given the fullest consideration to the question, in view of the subject matter, the important question of public policy involved and the extent and multiplicity of the interests affected, I have been driven to the conclusion that the Bill should not be allowed to proceed as a Private Bill: and I so rule.

Whereupon Order for Second Reading discharged.

Bill withdrawn.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Waiting Lists

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: asked the Minister of Housing and local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he is aware that some local authorities still operate their rules for residential qualifications in a way which can prevent people from getting on to any housing list for indefinite periods; and what advice he will give to local authorities in order to remedy this situation.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): Local authorities have been advised on a number of occasions to admit to their waiting lists any applicants living or working in the district. Most authorities already do this. I realise that in areas of acute housing shortage, particularly where there is little or no building land left, a specifically residential qualification may be thought justifiable. I would, however, urge all local authorities to ensure that, whatever their system, no local applicant in genuine housing need is excluded from consideration.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he would not agree that with the gradually improving housing situation the necessity for these residential qualifications is departing and that they should now be drastically relaxed, if not abolished? In the meanwhile, can authorities to co-ordinate their policies so as to ensure at least the no people are removed from


one list before they have had time to qualify for another?

Mr. Brooke: I think that is desirable, though on the point of co-ordination I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend will realise that an authority with no building land left may look upon this subject rather differently from an authority which has still got ample building land. The Central Housing Advisory Committee published a report some years ago urging no local authority to have a residential qualification period in excess of twelve months.

Mr. M. Stewart: As long as the effect of Government policy is to reduce the number of houses built by local authorities, is it very much use extending the number of names on housing lists?

Mr. Brooke: I am sure the hon. Gentleman is quite aware that the number of houses built by local authorities is now on the upgrade.

Rent Act, 1957

Mrs. Butler: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what evidence he now has to show that recent rent legislation has been effective in increasing house room.

Mr. H. Brooke: The Rent Act has, plainly, encouraged owners to repair, convert and modernise houses, and all this has helped both to increase house room and to improve it. The Act at the same time encouraged tenants who were over-housed to move to accommodation of a size better suited to their needs, and this also has helped. But it would unfortunately have been impossible to collect statistics of all the improvements in the housing situation which are due to the Act.

Mrs. Butler: Is the Minister aware that the result in Wood Green and Tottenham has been that the local authorities have had to use their resources to rehouse Rent Act cases while families on the housing waiting list who might otherwise have been rehoused are still living in grossly overcrowded conditions? In the absence of any statistics to support it, will he now withdraw his claim that the Rent Act has helped the housing situation?

Mr. Brooke: No. There is no doubt that the Rent Act has stimulated conversions, diminished under-occupation and, above all, led to a great increase in expenditure on repairing houses which were going downhill into slums.

Mr. Darling: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, in view of the growing number of tenants, now unprotected, who are being evicted owing to unreasonable demands for increased rents, if he will now review the whole operation of the Rent Act, 1957, with a view to introducing amending legislation.

Mr. H. Brooke: No, Sir.

Mr. Darling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these difficulties are growing and that, for instance, a London property company has recently bought a large block of private flats in my constituency merely in order to exploit the housing shortage in the city, with the consequence that, under threat of eviction, unprotected tenants have had demands requiring them to pay exorbitant rents? In view of the fact that this is contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman said was the spirit of the Act, will he tell us how to put the spirit of the Act into operation and make these landlords negotiate reasonable rent increases?

Mr. Brooke: Landlords can ask any rents they like, but that does not mean that they will be able to get them. If several tenants in a block of flats feel that the landlord is asking an exorbitant rent, I advise them to get together to employ professional advice and negotiate better terms.

Mr. Darling: In view of that unsatisfactory Answer, I give notice that I shall try to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Co-operative Housing Associations

Mrs. Butler: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what consideration he has given to the publication of a supplement to his booklet, "The Rent Act and You", advising groups of tenants threatened with excessive rents or eviction how they may proceed to


form themselves into co-operative housing associations, with loan assistance from their local authority under the Housing Acts or the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act.

Mr. H. Brooke: Advice on how to form a housing association is readily obtainable from the National Federation of Housing Societies, 12, Suffolk Street, London, S.W.1.

Mrs. Butler: Does not the Minister feel that he has a special responsibility to advise tenants who are threatened with property speculation and the takeover bids which have been one of the main consequences of the Rent Act, particularly as he has a glaring example so near to his own constituency in Hampstead Garden Suburb?

Mr. Brooke: I am simply concerned with the hon. Lady's Question. She is anxious to know how people can discover how to form themselves into co-operative housing associations. Those who wish to do that cannot do better than apply to the National Federation.

Small Shops (Tenancies)

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he is aware that former tenants of small shops and, in particular, those who live in premises, part of which is a shop, have been deprived of their tenancies because the landlords wanted them for their own purposes without having to profess or prove any need for the premises or hardship if they should be denied the use thereof; and whether he will take steps to amend the law so as to make such a process impossible.

Mr. H. Brooke: Possession of a combined shop and dwelling-house can only be obtained without proof of greater hardship to the landlord if the premises are outside the rateable value limits for rent control. In such cases the tenant enjoys substantially the same protection under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, as he would under the Rent Act, 1957, unless the landlord wishes to reoccupy the premises himself or to reconstruct them, and can satisfy the court of this. If the tenant has to give up the premises, he is entitled to compensation. I see no injustice in these provisions.

Mr. Janner: The Minister cannot have considered this matter at all. Does he not realise that all that a landlord has to do is to ask for possession of the place for himself, irrespective of how many other shops or premises he has, and he is entitled to possession? Will the Minister do something about this? Many people are affected.

Mr. Brooke: This has been the state of the law now for two and a half years. I am not aware that I have received any complaint at all from any part of the country, except from the hon. Gentleman. If he has specific cases to give me, I will gladly look into them.

Rental Income

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs the income from rents for 1959 compared with the last complete year before the operation of the Rent Act.

Mr. H. Brooke: I have no figures for house rents alone. The figures for rental income from land, dwellings and all other kinds of buildings, before providing for depreciation, are £1,145 million in 1959 and £814 million in 1956. The figure for 1959, which is provisional, as full information for that year is not yet available, includes of course rental income from the many new buildings brought into use subsequently to 1956. The figures are estimated according to the definitions used in the National Income Blue Books.

Mr. Allaun: I thank the Minister for those figures, which are very revealing. Is it not the fact that in the first two years alone there was an increase from £814 million to £1,038 million, an increase of 28 per cent. in two years? Since then, as further thousands of houses become decontrolled every week as the tenants remove or die, will not those figures be substantially increased, quite apart from the addition of rent for new buildings, which is a small item compared with them?

Mr. Brooke: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the figure of £814 million, which I quoted and he repeated, does not cover rent from houses and flats alone, but from all kinds of property.

Elderly People (Accommodation)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, in view of the growing concern at the shortage of suitable accommodation for old people, what action he proposes to take to stimulate the provision of one-bedroomed dwellings for elderly people at rents they can afford.

Mr. H. Brooke: Action has already been taken. Special subsidy is available; a booklet has been issued suggesting good and economical designs; and I lose no opportunity of encouraging local authorities to build more for the elderly. As a result, the proportion of one-bedroomed dwellings completed by local authorities has increased from 7·7 per cent. in 1951 to 22 per cent. in 1959. In current building programmes the proportion is now more than 27 per cent., and is still increasing. The local authorities should have no difficulty in fixing suitable rents provided they pool all their subsidies and give assistance only to those families in council houses who genuinely need it.

Mr. Dodds: Whilst again thanking the right hon. Gentleman for something, may I ask whether he does not think that the situation is now such that more should be done? Will he consider trying to find the size of this problem, because we have a rapidly ageing population and the evidence from so many places is that local authorities are not even tackling the problem at present?

Mr. Brooke: Wherever I go I encourage local authorities to build a larger proportion of these one-bedroom houses or flats, or flatlets, for old people, and some excellent designs are now in use. I am grateful to the hon. Member, because every reference to this subject brings additional attention to it; but it rests with local authorities to respond to the lead I am giving.

Mr. M. Stewart: The Minister mentioned the percentage of local authority building of this kind. Could he give us the number of these dwellings on those dates?

Mr. Brooke: Not exactly, but I could say that their number in 1959 was approximately double that in 1951.

Rent Increase Notices (Procedure)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will introduce amending legislation so as to remove from local authorities the obligation to give their tenants notices ending their tenancies when announcing an increase in rents.

Mr. H. Brooke: I will bear this in mind. I believe, however, that most authorities, to avoid misunderstanding, explain when serving a notice of increases in rent that the accompanying notice to quit is no more than a legal requirement since the existing tenancy agreement must be ended before a new one can be entered into.

Mr. Allaun: Does the Minister appreciate how alarming or upsetting it is to many tenants who do not understand that it is purely a formality to comply with the law when they are told that their tenancies are to end? Is it beyond the wit of the Minister to devise some way of avoiding this requirement?

Mr. Brooke: I thought I was giving the hon. Gentleman a sympathetic Answer. If there were something which I could do by administrative action, I should do it. It would require legislation and, one day, we may be able to have legislation about it. Meanwhile, I have indicated the way in which most local authorities try to put the real position clearly to their tenants.

Improvement Grants

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, in view of the refusal of improvement grants by local authorities on advice from his Department in respect of dwelling accommodation with access to shop premises, whether he will consider making such grants permissible; and for what reason such grants are not now permitted.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): It is a condition that, after improvement with a discretionary grant, a dwelling must be self-contained and capable of separate occupation. My right hon. Friend thinks a communicating door should not


exclude grant if the living accommodation has a separate access, and there is now no objection to the giving of grant where this condition is satisfied.
My right hon. Friend intends to cover this point, with others, in practice notes now being prepared for the guidance of local authorities.

Mr. Sorensen: Will the Minister accept my assurance that this will come as very gratifying news to many local authorities?

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Café Monico Site (Inquiry)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will announce his decision with regard to the redevelopment of the Café Monico site, which was the subject of a public inquiry in December.

Mr. H. Brooke: On this long and important inquiry I will announce my decision as soon as I can, but it is bound to be some time before I shall be in a position to do so.

Mr. Robinson: Has the right hon. Gentleman yet received his inspector's report? In view of the importance and urgency of this matter, can he give some indication when we might expect his decision?

Mr. Brooke: No. I have not yet received my inspector's report, but I think that there is common agreement that my inspector conducted the inquiry with great skill and I certainly would not wish to hurry him in completing what must necessarily be a long and difficult report to compile.

Compulsory Purchase Orders

Mr. W. Clark: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether, before confirming a compulsory purchase order, he will insist on an assurance that adjoining owners of the site in question have been informed of their rights under Section 68 of the Land Clauses Consolidation Act.

Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. The great majority of compulsory purchase orders

do not give grounds for claims under this Section, and it would therefore be misleading to notify adjoining owners.

Litter Act, 1958

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will make a further statement on the operation of the Litter Act, 1958; whether he is satisfied that local authorities are making sufficient use of their powers under the Act; and whether he will circulate local authorities to urge more drastic action.

Sir K. Joseph: Convictions under the Litter Act, 1958, in England and Wales rose from 351 in the first quarter of 1959 to 754 in the third quarter. My right hon. Friend has drawn the attention of all local authorities to their power to institute prosecutions under the Act. While he hopes that this power will be used whenever necessary, it is for each authority to decide how far this particular method of attack on the litter problem should be used in its area.

Mr. Prentice: While welcoming the information given in the earlier part of the reply, may I ask whether the Parliamentary Secretary agrees that there are still millions of people in this country who daily commit offences against this Act without even realising that they are committing offences? Further, does he agree that the standards of cleanliness and tidiness on our streets and in our open places are still very low compared with those in many other countries? Should not his right hon. Friend ask local authorities everywhere to step up the implementation of the Act?

Sir K. Joseph: A circular urging local authorities to intensify the anti-litter campaign in other ways is being prepared, but my right hon. Friend must carry public opinion with him in this as well as advising local authorities.

Euston Station

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what request he has now received from the British Transport Commission to demolish and move buildings at Euston station scheduled as historic monuments; what reply he has made; and if he will make a statement.

Sir K. Joseph: The British Transport Commission has given notice that it intends to remove the Great Hall and the Doric arch at Euston Station. The notice was given to the London County Council, which has informed my right hon. Friend. He is now considering the matter.

Mr. Wyatt: Will the Parliamentary Secretary agree that it would be an act of vandalism to destroy the Great Hall and Shareholders' Room at Euston Station, which was the first railway station to be built in any capital city of the world and is designated as an historic monument? Having agreed that, will he see to it that the British Transport Commission is made to produce an alternative scheme for lengthening the railway line, with the platforms and other improvements at Euston Station, so that it does not have to destroy the Great Hall and Shareholders' Room? Will he agree also that it might be acceptable to remove the Doric Arch nearer to Euston Road provided that it is not in any way disfigured or altered in so doing?

Sir K. Joseph: The two months' notice required does not lapse till the middle of March, during which interval my right hon. Friend is considering the alternatives about the Arch. As regards the Great Hall and Shareholders' Room, the proposals are now under discussion with the B.T.C., L.C.C. and external advisers to see whether their proposals can be modified in any way.

Mr. Snow: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that not everyone is convinced that there is a case for the protection of the Doric Arch on artistic grounds? Whilst it may have historic interest, not everybody is convinced that it has great artistic merit.

Thames (Flood Barrier)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he has considered reports made to him by consultants who have examined the proposal of the Waverley Committee for a flood barrier across the Thames near Dartford to reduce the risks of flooding; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. H. Brooke: I hope to arrange for the publication of a summary of these reports this month.

Mr. Dodds: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that information. Is it not deplorable that, after the disastrous floods of 1953, and though the Government offered or promised a report at the end of 1957, we are now in 1960 and just about to get one? If it takes that length of time to issue reports, how long will it take to obtain the physical resources to protect the millions of Londoners around the River Thames'?

Mr. Brooke: As the hon. Gentleman knows, two firms of consultants were asked to submit reports, and they submitted two reports. We shall now be publishing a summary of the reports in sufficiently non-technical language for the public to understand them. I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is an important matter. I had rather hoped that he would be grateful to me for promising publication this month.

Private Street Works

Mr. Ridsdale: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when the survey of private street works arrangements, being carried out by his Department, will be completed.

Sir K. Joseph: Information from local authorities, now almost complete, is about to be analysed. It is not yet possible to say how soon any general conclusions can be drawn.

Mr. Ridsdale: But is my hon. Friend aware what an urgent problem this is for retired ratepayers? Would it not be more realistic for his Department to give some help? The ratepayer faces very much increased burdens in the near future. Although local councils can contribute towards relieving the problem locally, could the Government help more generally?

Sir K. Joseph: I am very sympathetic to my hon. Friend's suggestions, but it would he most unwise to assume that there would be any fundamental change in present practice, since owners of these houses must be assumed to have known the obligations they were undertaking. There are many factors to be taken into account in this inquiry, and I am sure that I can give no accurate timetable.

Colonel Beamish: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is more than one view


about this, and that it is very disappointing to hear him say, apparently, that he has a shut mind on the matter? In considering whether new legislation is necessary, will he study carefully the views of local authorities and other interested parties before committing himself in any way?

City of Birmingham (Expansion)

Mr. Lindsay: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when he will be able to announce his decision about the City of Birmingham's proposal to expand into the Borough of Solihull and Bromsgrove rural district.

Mr. H. Brooke: This is a most important case which raises very complex issues and concerns more than 2,400 acres of land. I would not like to promise a date for my decision, but I will certainly announce it as soon as I can.

Mr. Lindsay: Does my right hon. Friend agree that large cities must not be allowed to expand all over the country, and especially in countryside designated as green belt? We confidently look to him to uphold this principle.

Mr. Brooke: In all courtesy to my hon. Friend, he will not tempt me into expressing any view on this difficult application until I am ready to announce a decision.

Tamworth (Flood Damage)

Mr. Snow: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware that Royal Air Force personnel recently rendered assistance to many people in Tamworth and to the civic authority by helping to dry out flooded houses with service equipment; and, in view of the exceptional expenses incurred in this and other ways by the local authority in dealing with the emergency created by the flooding, and of the fact that such expenses will have to be met from the rates, if he will consider making a special grant to the local authority towards such expenditure.

Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend has no authority to make a special grant towards this expenditure.

Mr. Snow: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that flooding on the scale recently

experienced at Tamworth may well cause expenditure that it is beyond the local authority's capacity to meet? Will he please look at this matter again, and ask for a report on the expenditure so far incurred in this way by this not very large authority?

Sir K. Joseph: I will gladly look at that again, but it seems to me that purely local flooding must be at the risk of the local authority itself.

Land (Purchase Price)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether his attention has been called to the effect of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, upon the purchase price of land; and what steps he proposes to take to enable local authorities to purchase land for housing purposes at reasonable prices.

Mr. H. Brooke: As I understand it, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is suggesting that local authorities should not pay the market value for land which they purchase for housing purposes. But it was a principal objective of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1959, to substitute this just requirement for the previous formula under which an owner might receive compensation well below the market value of the land.

Mr. Henderson: Is the Minister aware that, in 1955, twenty acres of land required by the Rowley Regis Borough Council for housing was valued by the district valuer at £5,000, and that, in November of last year, it was valued for the same purpose at £48,000? Does not the Minister consider that this will have a crippling effect on the efforts of local authorities, not only to provide housing, but to provide playing fields for the country's youth?

Mr. Brooke: I could not make any comment on the case quoted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman without knowing the full circumstances and, in particular, without knowing whether any new planning permission in the interval had affected the value.

Mr. M. Stewart: Although the case quoted by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis


and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) is particularly striking, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is only an example of a general tendency throughout the country that is worrying a great many local authorities and has been commented on in responsible journals? Will he look at this again?

Mr. Brooke: I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to go back on the 1959 Act, which established market value as the basis for compensation. I roust say that, as long as we hold to green belts, land in their neighbourhood that is available for building is bound to rise in value.

Mr. Henderson: But will not the right hon. Gentleman look into this question again? Is he aware of another case in Dunstable, where the local council paid £225,000 for 24 acres of ground required for open space and for playing fields? How, in those circumstances, does he expect local authorities to carry out their obligations to the community?

Mr. Brooke: I am glad to say that the local authority associations themselves accepted that local authorities should pay the market value when they are acquiring land. For most local authorities, and certainly as regards housing, which is the most important local authority function, the price of the land is only a small fraction of the cost of the houses.

Pollution of Beaches

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware of continued concern about the pollution of beaches in the United Kingdom, including the Bristol Channel area, by the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea; and if he will consider what new steps may be taken to deal with this problem.

Mr. H. Brooke: To the reply I gave on 1st February, to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) I would only add that the action needed is for local authorities whose beaches are grossly polluted to get busy and make proposals for improved disposal arrangements.

Mr. Gower: Is it not a fact that last summer, for example, the state of many

of the beaches on the Bristol Channel indicated that the steps so far taken have been quite inadequate? Has my right hon. Friend noted the views expressed by some local authorities and medical officers that this is too big a problem to be tackled out of the resources of small local authorities?

Mr. Brooke: Fortunately, a committee of the Medical Research Council has assured us that there is no risk to health here, but there are foul conditions on a certain number of beaches, and I say quite firmly that it is up to the local authorities to put forward proposals for remedying that condition.

Mrs. Slater: Is not this another instance of the Government, by putting up interest rates to local authorities, making it extremely difficult for them to tackle the colossal problem of new sewerage works?

Mr. Brooke: That is a much wider question.

Christ Church Meadow, Oxford

Mr. A. J. Irvine: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what requirement he has given to the Oxford City Council that any decision by it to develop land in Christ Church Meadow by the construction thereon of a road be referred to him.

Mr. H. Brooke: Any such proposal would involve amending the City's development plan, and would, therefore, require my approval before becoming effective.

Mr. Irvine: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer. Would he bear in mind that even his most bitter political opponents do not desire for him the fate of eternal torment, which will be his lot if this project goes through?

Mr. Brooke: As no project has so far been put up to me by the Oxford City Council, and as the hon. and learned Gentleman's remark did not appear to require an answer from me, I hope that he will excuse me if I do not give one.

Floods and Droughts

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware


of the periodical floods and droughts being experienced in various parts of the country; and if he will take steps to set up a committee to inquire into their prevention by conserving the national water supply, and dredging and clearing rivers and waterways so that the surplus water can be carried off during the rain seasons.

Mr. H. Brooke: Parliament has laid on the river boards the responsibility for reducing flooding by all reasonable means, which, of course, includes improving and maintaining main river channels. As regards droughts, my Central Advisory Water Committee is at work on the conservation of water, the growing demand for it, and the case for regulating abstractions. All these matters are, therefore, in hand, and I would not favour setting up another committee.

Mr. Awbery: Does not the Minister recall that, during last summer, the country suffered a severe drought, drinking water was cut off in many towns, and the reservoirs were at their lowest level for many years, yet, two months later, there were floods in the very same places? Could not he do something to solve the problem of alternating drought and flood?

Mr. Brooke: I am not God.

Radioactivity

Mrs. Butler: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what has been his reply to local authorities which have asked him to authorise county councils to undertake their own monitoring of food, air, and water for radioactive contamination, and to notify medical officers of health as to all establishments in their areas using radioactive materials or presenting possible radiation hazards.

Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend's advice has been that such monitoring is unnecessary as it would duplicate the Government's comprehensive monitoring arrangements. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Lady to the Answer to her Question on 2nd February.

Mrs. Butler: Has the Minister considered the representations from a growing number of local authorities and

medical officers that they cannot fulfil their public health responsibilities without these facilities? Is it not in the public interest that medical officers should be able to anticipate possible radiation hazards just as they do other potential dangers?

Sir K. Joseph: At the moment, my right hon. Friend tells medical officers when there is any possibility of special action being required by them. If they want more knowledge, they are free to ask for it from my right hon. Friend. As the House knows, there is a Bill at present in another place which will, if it goes through, require my right hon. Friend's Department to disclose all such knowledge generally in future, subject to security.

Water Supply and Sewerage Schemes

Mr. C. Hughes: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will give details of the number of water supply schemes and sewerage schemes in England and Wales and the capital cost thereof in each year since 1955.

Sir K. Joseph: As the information includes figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The table gives the total estimated cost of water supply schemes and sewerage schemes which my right hon. Friend has authorised in each of the years 1956 to 1959. I regret that information about the number of schemes authorised is not readily available.
The cost of water supply schemes carried out by water companies which do not require my right hon. Friend's authorisation is not included in the totals.

Mr. Hughes: Is it not the fact that there has been a progressive reduction in expenditure on this important matter during the last three or four years? Will the Minister reconsider the whole subject, in view of the very real need for improvement, especially in the rural areas?

Sir K. Joseph: No, the trend is an upward trend both in real and in nominal terms.

Following is the information:


TOTAL ESTIMATED COST OF SCHEMES AUTHORISED IN ENGLAND AND WALES


Year
Water Supply
Sewerage



£m.
£m.


1956
20·1
18·0


1957
17·8
24·9


1958
19·6
32·6


1959
23·9
38·9

Church Premises (Posters)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what consultations he has had with other Government Departments as a result of his recent correspondence with he Leyton Free Church Council in respect of the dispatch to local authorities of posters dealing with official notices to be affixed to church premises; if he is aware that large numbers of those posters are so affixed although there is no obligation on the part particularly of Free Churches to provide space for that purpose; and whether, to avoid waste, disfigurement of church premises and annoyance, he will take steps to decrease the number of posters dispatched to local authorities for display in church premises, and ensure that normally their display is confined to Government or local government premises.

Sir K. Joseph: This is a useful practice, but should, of course, be subject to agreement between the local authority and the Church authorities concerned.

Mr. Sorensen: But is the Minister aware that there is, in fact, no legal obligation, especially on the Free Churches, to exhibit these notices, but nevertheless, very many such notices are sent to local authorities and they have to dispose of them? The result is an utter waste. Does the Minister appreciate that it is certainly not encouraging to worshippers in the Free Churches to arrive at their churches and find notices about swine fever, for instance, displayed outside their doors? Will he take some action about it?

Sir K. Joseph: I can only repeat that this is a very useful practice, but it must, obviously, be subject to agreement.

Smoke Control Areas

Mr. Holt: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what percentage of the black areas as regards air pollution are now designated as smoke control areas.

Sir K. Joseph: At the end of January, 532 orders for smoke control areas had been made or were in preparation. Together with earlier smokeless zones, these include about 620,000 premises, mostly in the black areas. Eventually, perhaps as many as 8 million premises may be covered, again nearly all in black areas.

Mr. Holt: As this is but a small percentage of the black areas, is the Minister satisfied with the response of local authorities to their opportunity? Could he, perhaps, speak with the Minister of Health about it, in view of the relationship between the black areas and the incidence of bronchitis, in order to encourage local authorities to get on with the job quickly?

Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. Friend intends to press on with the programme, which he would like to see running faster. I must say, however, that it is running now within the sort of overall programme always envisaged in the Beaver Report.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Economic Problems

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has considered the request from the Malta Progressive Constitutional Party to appoint a Royal Commission on economic and constitutional matters; and what study he has made of the case for a further review of the economic problems still facing the island.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): I am taking this request into consideration in examining Malta's problems, but my present view is against a further economic review while the Malta Government's five-year development plan is still in its early stages.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: When considering the difficult economic future of the


island, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that ship-repair work is not too easy to obtain nowadays even for established yards in this country?

Mr. Macleod: That is certainly true, but I think we have recently had enough economic surveys of the position in Malta, and the five-year plan has been running for less than a year.

Mr. Callaghan: While it is true that we have had several surveys, is it not already clear that the proposals of the Government for full employment in Malta will not be fulfilled? In that case, what is the point of waiting longer for the expiry of a period which will confirm only that there will be substantial unemployment in Malta?

Mr. Macleod: I do not accept the premise which the hon. Gentleman advances. I have no doubt that the position is a difficult one and much depends on the future of Bailey's in Malta. I have no reason to think that matters will turn out as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Messrs. C. H. Bailey (Malta) Ltd.

Mr. Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what form of Maltese participation there is to be in Messrs. C. H. Bailey (Malta) Ltd.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Bailey (Malta) Ltd., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of C. H. Bailey Ltd., and Maltese participation takes the form of shareholding in the parent company. Many have taken advantage of this, and Maltese holdings already amount to 10 per cent. of the total issued share capital. A Maltese, Mr. Cecil Pace, is a local director of the firm.

Mr. Dugdale: Can the Minister say whether the Maltese shareholders have any voting rights, or whether they are simply holding debenture shares which have no voting rights whatever?

Mr. Macleod: I should like notice of that point, but it is the intention of the company to provide opportunities for most of its employees, either through share-holding or profit-sharing, to become directly interested in the success of this firm.

Secretary of State's Visit

Mr. Awbery: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the conditions laid down in his offer to meet Mr. Mintoff in Malta; the problems he intended to discuss; and if he is yet able to make a statement on his recent visit to the island.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Delegations of four from each of the Maltese political parties were invited to meet me. It was made clear to the Malta Labour Party that there was no restriction on the views they could place before me in discussion. My aim was to familiarise myself with local opinion and views on Malta's future. With regard to a statement, I have nothing to add to my hon. Friend's reply of 17th December, to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway).

Mr. Awbery: In view of the fact that Mr. Mintoff is the elected representative of the people of Malta and was Prime Minister of Malta prior to the suspension of the Constitution, will the right hon. Gentleman now meet Mr. Mintoff as the representative of the people of Malta and discuss all the problems arising concerning the island?

Mr. Macleod: It is not I, but Mr. Mintoff, who laid down conditions about the meeting. I went to Malta ready and indeed anxious to meet Mr. Mintoff and I very much regret that we did not meet. As I said in the statement which I made when I left the island, I am now considering with my colleagues in London the right action to take for the future of Malta, making it clear, as I have often made it clear before, that I would like to move away, when we can do it, from the system of Governor's rule.

Mr. Awbery: Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore invite Mr. Mintoff to this country to discuss these problems with him?

Mr. Macleod: No, Sir. But when my discussions are complete, naturally I would find a way of discussing them, or of the Governor discussing them, in the first instance not simply with Mr. Mintoff alone, but with all the representatives of the different political parties in Malta.

Oral Answers to Questions — NYASALAND

Dr. Banda

Mr. Foot: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what communication there was between the Governor of Nyasaland and the Federal authorities before the latter arrived at their decision regarding the proposed interview between Sir John Moffat and Dr. Banda; and what views the Governor expressed.

Mr. Wade: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will summarise the communications which passed between the Governor of Nyasaland and tae Government of the Federation regarding the latter's decision not to allow Sir John Moffat to visit Dr. Banda; and what assurances were obtained as a result of these communications.

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what representations have been made by the Governor of Nyasaland to the Federal Government requesting that Sir John Moffat be allowed to visit Dr. Banda in Gwelogaol.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply given to the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) on 10th December. As stated in that reply, the conditions under which Sir John Moffat could have seen Dr. Banda naturally formed the subject of consultation between the Federal and Nyasaland Governments. It is not customary, however, to divulge the nature of such discussions between Governments.

Mr. Foot: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that the Governor of Nyasaland was not overruled in this matter by the Federal authorities?

Mr. Macleod: The position is that the question of who interviews people who are held in prison is a matter entirely for the Federal authorities and not for the Governor of Nyasaland.

Mr. Wade: Would the Minister agree that Sir John Moffat is a man of great distinction who represents an important body of opinion in Central Africa? Surely, he should be encouraged to meet Dr. Banda, because it might lead to some very valuable result?

Mr. Macleod: Sir John Moffat is certainly a man of very considerable eminence. I do not deny that for a moment, but this is the only case that has caused this sort of difficulty, and I have no reason to think that there will be a recurrence.

Mrs. Castle: Is it not a fact that although Dr. Banda is in a Federal prison he is not a Federal prisoner, and that, in fact, he is being detained under emergency regulations for which the Minister is responsible? In view of that fact, is it not the duty of the Governor of Nyasaland to have a continuing responsibility for his prisoner, and can the Colonial Secretary tell us whether the Governor has discharged that responsibility by making representations demanding that Dr. Banda be allowed to see all reasonable persons, including Sir John Moffat?

Mr. Macleod: With respect, I do not think that the hon. Lady is wholly right, although I agree with much of what she has said. The position is that Dr. Banda, and for that matter any detainee, whether in Nyasaland or in Southern Rhodesia, is detained and can be freed by order of the Governor. When they are in prison, and in prisons in the Federation, again, whether they are in Nyasaland or in Southern Rhodesia, they are entirely a matter for the Federal Government, which makes the regulations.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Is that quite correct? Is not the responsibility for prisons a concurrent responsibility? Having regard to the fact that Dr. Banda is a political prisoner, is it not a matter of immense political importance and significance that he should be under the exclusive control in prison of Sir Roy Welensky, who is his greatest opponent on the Central Africa issue, and should not Dr. Banda be in prison under the exclusive control of the Governor of Nyasaland, who is directly responsible to the Minister?

Mr. Macleod: On the last point, he could not be in such a prison, because all prisons, whether in Nyasaland or not, are Federal. I will look into the point that the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised, but with great respect I think he is wrong. I think it is not a concurrent matter, but a matter which accrues to


the Federal Government by the operation of Article 31 of the Constitution. I am saying that from memory, but I am fairly sure that it is right.

Mr. Callaghan: Is not the Colonial Secretary aware that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) put to him just after Christmas a way in which it would be quite possible to frame a detention order by the Governor of Nyasaland so that Sir John Moffat could see Dr. Banda? Is not this the real position? Although the Governor has expressed his willingness to allow Sir John Moffat to see Dr. Banda, he is not willing to take the steps which he could legally take by varying the detention order to enable him to do so?

Mr. Macleod: The Governor can certainly vary the detention order, but I think that it is arguable whether that in its turn would overrule in those circumstances the Federal rule to which I have referred. I take it that the hon. Gentleman agrees with my interpretation of where responsibility there lies. It is certainly possible for the Governor of Nyasaland either to release or to make a change in a detention order, though, as I have said, I do not think that just because of this case, which took place many months ago, it is necessary to do so.

Mr. S. Silverman: Would the right hon. Gentleman explain a further point? Since he has said that Dr. Banda is held in detention only under the emergency order of the Governor, and since he has said that the Governor could order him to be released at any time, would he explain why, therefore, the Governor has not the power to determine the conditions under which he is detained; and, if he has such a power, why does not that dispose of the point raised by my hon. Friend?

Mr. Macleod: I do not think it does. He has the power to vary the conditions of the order, but this does not alter the position under the Federal law whereby anyone who is held in prison is subject to Federal administration.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations referred to prisons in this House the other day as being a concurrent matter?

Will the Minister check this position, and if he is wrong in his assumption that they are not a concurrent matter, but exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, will he then come back to the House and amend his attitude towards it?

Mr. Macleod: Certainly, if I am wrong. I have said that I was speaking from recollection, although my impression is that this is not concurrent, but operates under Article 31. Naturally, if I am wrong about this, I will tell the House tomorrow after Questions. I would not dream of doing anything else.

Later—

Mr. Iain Macleod: On a point of order. A short time ago in a supplementary answer to the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas) and when discussing the question of prison legislation in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, I said that my recollection was that the Federal Government have exclusive legislative power and that this was not a matter of concurrent legislation.
I have a list now of the division of functions and the position is that, although it is correct that the Federal Government in fact exercise this exclusive legislative power in relation to prisons, prisons and some other matters are items from the concurrent legislative list, Part II of the Second Schedule. It is therefore the fact that prison regulations are made by the Federal Government. My recollection was wrong in so far as I referred to Article 31 and also to the concurrent list.
I thought that I should take the earliest opportunity of saying so.

Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas: I thank the Minister for so promptly making that correction. Now that he realises that under the concurrent list he has power with regard to prisons, would he be so good as to look again at my suggestion that Dr. Banda should be brought to a prison under his own direct responsibility in Nyasaland?

Mr. Macleod: I think I will have to look into that matter in the light of the questions that were put today.

Mr. S. Silverman: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Member desire to pursue that topic, because I believe that we ought to bring it to an end?

Mr. Silverman: No, Sir.

Detainees

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will now lift the state of emergency in Nyasaland, and release all political detainees, including Dr. Hastings Banda.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I would refer the hon. Member to replies to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) and the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 17th November last.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Colonial Secretary aware that the form of words used on 17th November has become a little more than tarnished after this interval of eleven months? Why is this emergency continuing? Why is Dr. Banda being kept in prison? If Dr. Banda cannot be returned immediately to Nyasaland, will the Colonial Secretary consider inviting him to this country en route for Zomba?

Mr. Macleod: I tried to answer some of these questions in what I said at Leeds on the accelerated release of detainees, which is now in the process of being carried out. I said then that I hoped there would be an early end to the emergency.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Land Settlement Scheme (Ex-Service Men)

Mr. Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state the terms on which farms may be acquired by ex-Service men in Northern Rhodesia under the land settlement scheme recently announced by the Government of the Federation of -Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

Mr. Iain Macleod: This is a special training scheme for ex-Service men prematurely retired from the Armed Forces. Before taking possession of the farms allocated to them, successful applicants will be required to undergo

a two-year training period with an experienced tobacco farmer. They will also be required to deposit £3,500 with the Northern Rhodesia Government for the future development of their farms and to be in receipt of an income with which to maintain themselves and their families during the training period.

Mr. Dugdale: While nobody will expect that many Africans will be in possession of such income, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the scheme is open to people of all races, provided that they have such an income?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, it would be, but I agree that very few Africans, if any at all, would qualify under this. As I have said, it is a scheme for ex-Service men prematurely retired from the Armed Forces, and I think that the knowledge, the skill and the contribution to the economy which these people could bring to Northern Rhodesia would be very welcome.

New Bills

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his attention has been drawn to new restrictive Bills, namely, L.C.B. 47, 1959, and L.C.B. 48, 1959, which have just been gazetted in Northern Rhodesia; if he is aware that these two Bills are oppressive in character, and that he has power, to be exercised through the Governor of Northern Rhodesia to disallow them; and if he will exercise his power of disallowance accordingly.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I have seen these Bills. The Protected Places and Areas Bill provides for the protection of essential installations from wanton damage or sabotage. The Preservation of Public Security Bill is designed to enable the Governor, when a recongisable threat to public security arises, to take such Rowers as the actual situation may necessitate with the object of preventing grave disorder. Both Bills have my general approval.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister realise that it is particularly unfortunate to persist with repressive legislation of this kind at the present time, when all people of good will are seeking to enlarge the liberties of Africans and to create an atmosphere of good will amongst the European and African people? Will the


right hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision upon this point? Does he realise that if he does not disallow these Bills, he must take the consequences?

Mr. Macleod: The hon. and learned Member must realise that, far from this being an attempt to introduce repressive legislation, its object at least is exactly the reverse, as we explained when discussing the similar type of Bill in Kenya. The position, briefly, is that at the moment a Governor can only take the full powers that are available to him by Order in Council for an emergency. The object of this is to make lesser powers available to him, which may save the situation from deteriorating to the point at which emergency has to be declared.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Minister aware that these Bills were opposed in Northern Rhodesia by representatives of all the parties and of all the races? Although they were not defeated, there was substantial opposition to them. Can the Secretary of State tell the House, as this is an important matter, what were the grounds of the principal opposition?

Mr. Macleod: That may be so only in relation to one Bill. Concerning the first one, the Protected Places and Areas Bill, there was no division on Third Reading. Indeed, Sir John Moffat said in his speech that the Bill was acceptable to him. The second one was, no doubt, opposed on the ground that these were very wide powers indeed to put into the hands of a Governor. I entirely agree with that criticism so far as it goes, but I believe that both in Kenya and here, this form of legislation will be found to prevent, not to encourage, the situations that lead to emergency.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Dugdale.

Mr. Callaghan: Does the Colonial Secretary inform himself—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If we are to get on, I have to assert some violence from time to time.

Houses, Lusaka (Police Searches)

Mr. Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the circumstances in which the houses of United National Independence Party leaders in Lusaka were searched by plain-clothes police.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The search was carried out under warrant with the object of finding documents required in connection with investigations into criminal offences.

Mr. Dugdale: Were any documents found?

Mr. Macleod: In one case, yes.

Officials (Hotel Accommodation, Salisbury)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that African members of the Northern Rhodesian Civil Service, travelling abroad on official business, are sometimes compelled by the exigencies of the airline schedules to spend a night in Salisbury, and that, on these occasions, they have been refused admittance to the Jameson Hotel in Salisbury on the grounds that, although the hotel is nominally multi-racial, it is only allowed under the Land Apportionment Act of Southern Rhodesia to admit non-indigenous Africans; and what representations he has made regarding the provision of suitable accommodation for officials for whom he is responsible while in transit through Southern Rhodesia.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware of only one recent case of an African civil servant being refused admission to the Jameson Hotel. No representations have been made as it is known that the hotel proprietors are applying for the necessary licence to accommodate indigenous Africans.

Mrs. Castle: Is it not an absurd system of multi-racialism which allows a hotel to give accommodation to an African only if he does not come from inside the so-called multi-racial federation? Is not the Colonial Secretary directly concerned, since by the nature of the air transport many of his officials in the two Protectorates are compelled often to be in transit through Salisbury? Will the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, tell the House what provision is available for African civil servants from Northern Rhodesia who have to spend a night on official business in Salisbury?

Mr. Macleod: If the hon. Lady studies my Answer, I think that she will find that the point is met, because a provision which is an important advance was


added last year to the Land Apportionment Act. I will send the hon. Lady details. If the licence to which I have referred in my main Answer is granted, his sort of problem will not arise.

Mrs. Castle: Is the licence granted?

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

Monckton Commission

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what instructions he has given to the Governors of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland to make arrangements for any colonial civil servants, who so wish, to appear before or send evidence to the Monckton Commission either for or against the Federation, in its present form, of the Protectorate in which he serves with the Colony of Southern Rhodesia.

Mr. Iain Macleod: None, Sir. The Governors of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland are, however, considering whether it would be appropriate for civil servants to give evidence to the Commission.

Mr. Stonehouse: Does not the Colonial Secretary agree that it would be very useful indeed if these colonial civil servants could appear before the Monckton Commission? Is he aware that a few days ago, Sir Roy Welensky said that he was aware that many colonial civil servants in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were opposed to federation? Does not the Colonial Secretary agree that it is important that this sort of information from the colonial civil servants should be available to the Commission?

Mr. Macleod: That is a point of view and, doubtless, one that is being taken into account by the Governors as they consider this matter. There is also what might be called the traditional point of view, that civil servants who appear before commissions—if they appear at all, which in a sense is unusual—confine themselves, not to opinion, but to factual statements.

MONCKTON COMMISSION

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Prime Minister what protests he has received from the Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the Government of the Colony of Southern

Rhodesia regarding the rejection of the terms of reference of the Monckton Commission by Lord Shawcross, a member appointed by him.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
I cannot accept the implications of the hon. Gentleman's Question and cannot add anything on the subject of the terms of reference. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that our object should be to assist the Commission in its work.

Mr. Stonehouse: Even if the Home Secretary cannot accept the implications has he seen a report of the speech made by Sir Roy Welensky on 13th January, in which he said that he and Sir Edgar Whitehead
found it deplorable that Lord Shawcross should have seen fit to publicise his views before the Commission had begun its work and to have done so in a matter which seems to us at complete variance with the terms of reference—"?
of the Commission. In view of that statement and in view of the fact that since that statement was made the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia has said that he wishes—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] In view of the fact that the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia has indicated that he would not accept the terms of reference, is it not important that, if the Commission is to be successful, its terms of reference should be amended before it starts its work?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. I am not prepared to add to or to subtract from the terms of reference or to put any gloss upon them. I have read all the statements concerned.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is this not an extraordinary situation. The Prime Minister of the Federation has said that the remarks of Lord Shawcross are deplorable and at variance with the terms of reference. Are we not to be told Her Majesty's Government's views on these terms of reference? Do they agree with Sir Roy Welensky on this point or not? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that Sir Roy Welensky said that he intended to take up this matter as one of the first things to be discussed with the Prime Minister? Can the right hon Gentleman tell us the outcome of those discussions?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir, I cannot give the detailed discussions which my right hon. Friend had with the Prime Minister of the Federation, although all relevant questions were discussed and I do not doubt that discussions took place on this subject also.

DENTISTS'AND DOCTORS' REMUNERATION (REPORT)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the negotiations with the medical profession following the publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on Dentists' and Doctors' Remuneration and the importance of the Government's decisions arising therefrom, he will enlarge the Cabinet by the inclusion of the Minister of Health.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
The hon. Member would be wrong if he thought that, because my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health is not a member of the Cabinet, the Government will give less than due attention to the questions raised by this Report.

Mr. Pavitt: Will the Leader of the House use his very impressive pursuasive qualities on his right hon. Friend to urge him to take into consideration, not only the Government's position vis-à-vis the Minister, but, in view of these negotiations with the medical profession, the need for confidence on the other side in the negotiations if the outcome is to be satisfactory? The Report to be published next Thursday week may well set the pattern of the family doctor service for the next twenty years. The way in which previous negotiations were carried on destroyed the confidence of the medical profession. This single act perhaps would be sufficient to restore confidence in the Government.

Mr. Butler: The hon. Member's Question will have done a service if it draws attention to the fact that the Government attach the greatest possible importance to this Commission and to the findings which we shall see on 18th February. I can assure the hon. Member and the House that this matter will be treated by the Government as one of the first importance.

CYPRUS

Mr. W. Yates (by Private Notice): asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the statement of Her Majesty's Government in Nicosia yesterday, suspending indefinitely the date of independence of Cyprus, what instructions Her Majesty's Government have issued to the Governor and what is now Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the London Agreement.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): Before answering all the points in my hon. Friend's Question, I must await a personal report from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Meanwhile, I wish to make certain points clear.
First of all, I wish to emphasise that Her Majesty's Government still want a settlement on the basis of the London and Zurich Agreements of February last year. It was an essential element of those Agreements that the United Kingdom should define the areas to be retained under British sovereignty and the rights and facilities necessary to enable the sovereign base areas to be used effectively as military bases.
It is, therefore, totally misleading to suggest, as I have seen it suggested, that we have issued something like an ultimatum or have adopted a rigid position. Over the last nine months our position has indeed, been anything but rigid. In a long series of discussions and negotiations we have been consistently and patiently trying to meet every reasonable point put forward by the Cypriot representatives.
As I reminded the House on 1st February, we reduced our requirements for the sovereign base areas from areas including at first some 16,000 inhabitants to ones with a population of less than 1,000. Square miles offer a misleading criterion. The area we need is only equivalent to an 11 miles by 11 miles in two separate parts. The Cypriots themselves suggested the equivalent of six miles by six.
When one considers the installations already in the areas and those which have to be brought into them, many of them of a secret nature, and when one considers the need for room to operate


our equipment and for some dispersal in emergency, I am sure that it is right to say, as I said to the House on 1st February, that our position on the extent of the areas is reasonable and, indeed, a minimum.
In addition, we have offered arrangements under which the Government of the Republic would carry out many administrative functions affecting Cypriots and Cypriot property in the sovereign base areas. In his latest discussions, my hon. Friend made further proposals under this head to meet new points put forward by the Cypriot representatives. Moreover, he told them that we should be prepared to offer a grant of £10 million over five years—that is to say, £2 million more than the figure which I gave to the House last week. Of this extra £2 million, a proportion would be available to the Turkish Cypriot community. That cannot be a rigid position; indeed, I think that it can well be described a very fair offer.
Unfortunately, this latest statement of our position and the concessions which it contained were not acceptable to the Cypriot leaders. It therefore became clearly impossible to reach agreement in time for a settlement which would allow the new independent Republic to be established on the date which we had contemplated—19th March. Here. I would say that I do not think that the arrangement whereby we have been working against a fixed timetable has proved very satisfactory. There is, therefore, advantage in not fixing a new date. It is better to see if we can reach agreement and then fix the date accordingly.
Our position and the offers which it contains remain open as we have stated them to the Cypriot leaders. It is a position fully in accord with the London and Zurich Agreements reached with Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kutchuk, as well as the Greek and Turkish Governments, last year. It was the agreed foundation for a settlement and we remain ready to reach agreement on that basis.

Mr. Yates: First, in view of the Foreign Secretary's statement that the Government wish to go on negotiating, can my right hon. and learned Friend say why the Government arbitrarily

rejected the offer of Dr. Kutchuk yesterday to mediate on behalf of the Cypriot people? Secondly, will my right hon. and learned Friend tell me and the country the military, strategic or magic value of sovereignty without the good will and co-operation of 15,000 Cypriot people who will work in our installations in Cyprus? Thirdly, will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm or deny that it is not Her Majesty's Government's intention to pursue a policy which will end, if the Cypriots do not play ball, in partition?

Mr. Lloyd: I have always maintained the view that partition would be the worst possible solution of the Cypriot question. It is something which we must, at all costs, seek to avoid.
I am not aware that we rejected any offer of mediation. The plain fact of the matter is that, unless agreement was reached yesterday, it was impossible to maintain the timetable of 19th March. In that sense, the negotiations reached a certain point at which a decision had to be taken. That does not mean that we do not want still to try to reach agreement with both Cypriot communities about the future of Cyprus.
The question of sovereignty was dealt with on a previous occasion. My belief is that we should retain bases under our sovereign control. That was the basis of the agreement of last February. It was known by everybody to be the basis of the agreement. It also has the advantage that it means that we would have an area completely under our own control in which our actions could not be queried. It could not be suggested that there was misrepresentation of the terms of a lease or of an agreement. There could not be arbitration about whether we were doing right or wrong. We would have the matter under our control. That would be right from our point of view and advantageous to the Cypriot Government. It is of importance that we should keep the minimum area necessary for our requirements under our sovereign control.

Mr. Healey: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain the purpose of sending a British Minister to Cyprus to negotiate on this issue without empowering him to depart in any way from the terms of the British position on which the conference had previously broken


down in London? Is it not the case that the only achievement of the British Minister's mission was to unite the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus against the British?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that the hon. Gentleman and the House should know something of the difficulties of this negotiation. It has been quite the most difficult negotiation in which I have ever been concerned. I will give one or two examples.
With regard to arrangements for mobile training, we put forward certain proposals. The Archbishop said that that would be all right if they were put in a separate agreement. After thinking of the legal consequences, we agreed to accept that. When we said that we would put them in a separate agreement, we found that he had withdrawn his agreement to every one of the training arrangments.
The Archbishop said, "If only you reduce the size of the sovereign areas I will give you every facility you want in the parts from which you withdraw your claim to sovereignty." We considered that and said, regarding the Pissouri bulge, the bit to left of the left hand area, "We will take that out of the sovereign area and rely on special facilities." Yesterday, he said that he never heard of any arrangement that we should have special facilities in that area.
A third example concerns dual nationality. It has been accepted all the way through that the Cypriots living in the sovereign area should have dual nationality. Yesterday, we were told for the first time that this was quite unacceptable.
This is an extremely difficult negotiation, and I would ask for a little sympathy and help from the House so that we can get this agreement which, I am firmly convinced, will be not only in our interests, but profoundly in the interests of the people of Cyprus.

Mr. Healey: While no one would dispute the difficulty of negotiating with Archbishop Makarios on this issue, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not aware that Dr. Kutchuk, as leader of the Turkish community on the island, made a strong public complaint of the attitude of Her Majesty's Government in the negotiations yesterday, when they were broken off on the ground that we

were not prepared to accept his mediation on the issue? What explanation has the Foreign Secretary to offer for Her Majesty's Government's rejection of Dr. Kutchuk's offer?

Mr. Lloyd: Before I answer that question, I should like to see a statement of precisely what was said. I do not think that it is useful for me to comment on what Dr. Kutchuk has said, or on the part he has played in these negotiations, because if I said that he had played a very useful part it might damage his authority in Cyprus. So I had better remain silent.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that he still has not answered the question asked by his hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) about the value of the base in a hostile island? Can he tell us what circumstances he envisages in which Her Majesty's Government can use these military installations in the face of a hostile Cyprus Government? Are not Her Majesty's Government confusing the terms "base" and "bridgehead"? What do the Government really want, a base with the agreement and good will of the Cyprus people or a bridgehead on a hostile island?

Mr. Lloyd: Of course we want a base with the good will of the Cypriot people. That is what we believe we shall get eventually, but we have to consider emergencies and we must have the essential minimum for emergencies.

Mr. Grimond: Without giving away State secrets, may I ask whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman can tell us why we are asking for 120 square miles roughly in two areas while the Cypriots believe that we need only 36 square miles? Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman reiterate that there is no intention of setting up a small British colony or society in Cyprus with a civilian Government and that this area will be subject to military government for military purposes?

Mr. Lloyd: There is no intention to have anything other than an administration under military control. We have given the clearest possible guarantees that we shall not seek to set up small colonies or use them, which was feared at one time, for any form of commercial competition with the people of Cyprus.
A certain number of installations and troops have to be deployed in this area. For example, I think that it would make absolute nonsense to say that we should have the headquarters in an area under British sovereignty and its wireless mast in an area not under British sovereignty. There has to be a minimum of area and I think that we have come to the minimum.

Mr. de Freitas: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has said that what we want is a base and not a bridgehead and that we are not seeking to set up a colony. Might it not be a way of reducing the deadlock to reduce this to a merely military technical level and to hand over the next stage of negotiations to the Service Departments?

Mr. Lloyd: I am very ready to have it reduced to a technical matter, but I think that from a military point of view the Cypriot view is that our requirements are quite reasonable.

Mr. K. Robinson: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm what is said in the Press today, that the Cypriots have been informed that this is our final position? Is the Foreign Secretary prepared to sacrifice the good will of Cypriots to please the chocolate soldiers on his own back benches?

Mr. Lloyd: Disregarding the rather offensive latter part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, I must say that there had to be some finality if we were to reach an agreement. For nine months we have been making offer after offer, none of which has been accepted.

Mr. J. Eden: May I assure my right hon. and learned Friend that we congratulate him on his efforts? Is he not aware that there is a very real possibility that without the presence of British troops on this island the old antagonism between Greek and Turkish Cypriots will start again? [Laughter.] Would it not be just as well to remind ourselves who it is that wants independence in Cyprus?

Mr. Lloyd: I am sorry that the House should have laughed at what my hon. Friend said about conflict between Greeks and Turks. I said the same thing in 1954, and we know what happened. Very soon after the matter had

been brought to the United Nations hostilities began between the two sections, and there is the same danger all the time. It is very important that we should try to get this matter settled as quickly as possible for fear that communal hostility may break out again.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the British people as a whole view this situation with grave anxiety and that, whatever noises may come from hon. Members on the benches behind him, none of us wants a return to the conflict and hatred and bitterness that existed in Cyprus before the Agreement?
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not feel that the really important question is how to get negotiations going again and that an intransigent attitude, particularly if expressed in public by our Foreign Secretary, as it has been today, will certainly do no good to the prospects of resuming our negotiations? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us how he proposes to try to reach agreement if he says that his own position is final?

Mr. C. Osborne: That is very helpful, is it not'?

Mr. Lloyd: I agree that it is necessary that we should try to avoid the trouble and dangers and difficulties that might come, and that is why I ask for a little bit of assistance from both sides of the House in this matter. The kind of statement which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has just made is the kind that makes agreement practically impossible to get.

Mr. Gaitskell: That kind of statement, without any argument whatever behind it, will not he taken seriously by anybody. Will the Foreign Secretary please take his position a little more seriously and consider the repercussions of what he says not only in this country, but in Cyprus as well? Will he again please tell the House how he proposes to resume negotiations not only with Archbishop Makarios, but also with the Turkish leader who, on this occasion, is lined up with the Archbishop?

Mr. Lloyd: It would be very much more helpful, if, instead of being offensive, the right hon. Gentleman would indicate that our offer has been a very fair one. That would help.

Mr. Longden: May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether he will make it abundantly clear to the country, as he has done today to the House, that we have made every possible, reasonable concession that we can be expected to make within the London Agreement and that if he had the whole House of Commons behind him we should have an agreement which would be to the undoubted mutual advantage of every Greek and Turkish Cypriot and of this country?

Mr. Lloyd: My hon. Friend is quite right.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that what we have heard from him this afternoon reminds some of us very tragically of all that we have lived through during the last five years, from which we hoped we had escaped?

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: By running away.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Foreign Secretary further aware that the last occasion on which charges of this nature were made about what Archbishop Makarios was supposed to have done or not to have done was about a fortnight before he was deported to the Seychelles and led to a situation which, in my view, was one of unparalleled gravity in a Colony of this size?
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman really think that the sort of statement that he has made will help him to get negotiations going again? May we not beg him at this stage to send fresh instructions to the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies before he comes home? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am asking this question because we do not want to go through the bloodshed we had before, from which the Government did not emerge with honour.
Will the Foreign Secretary send fresh instructions to the Under-Secretary to find out exactly on what basis it will be possible to come to an agreement with the Greeks and the Turks in the island about the size of a military establishment so that we may ensure that the base there will be in friendly territory with the co-operation of the inhabitants?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman has said that my statement this afternoon was intransigent. If he will read it he will see that it was not intransigent. I

repeated our desire to reach agreement and that we must try to reach agreement by negotiation. The point is that we have passed the date when it will be possible for the independence Bill to come into effect, namely, 19th March. That is what has happened. Of course, we must continue to try to reach agreement, and that is what we shall do.

Mr. W. Yates: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the replies given by the Foreign Secretary I would be grateful for your advice. Tomorrow, there is to be a foreign affairs debate on the Motion set down on the Order Paper. Will it be in order for hon. Members to discuss Cyprus?

Mr. Speaker: Not as far as I remember. Not in the present state of the Order Paper, because there is an express substantive Motion to be discussed relating to other matters. If the hon. Member does something about the Order Paper, the position might be changed, but I cannot deal with a hypothetical situation of that kind. My present difficulty is one in which I hope the House will have sympathy with me: there is no Question before the House.

Later—

Mr. Healey: On a point of order. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the breakdown of negotiations over the future of the British base in Cyprus.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member asks leave to move, under Standing Order No. 9, the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of debating a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the breakdown of negotiations over the future of the British base in Cyprus. Does the hon. Member have the leave of the House?

The pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), until Seven o'clock this evening.

RAILWAYS (ACCIDENT BRADWELL)

Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport (by Private Notice): asked the Minister of Transport whether he has any statement to make with regard to the railway accident at Bradwell, Sandbach, Cheshire, on 8th February.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): At 1.18 a.m. on Monday. 8th February, the 9.52 p.m. express passenger train from York to Swansea was derailed on plain track between Holmes Chapel and Sandbach in the London Midland Reigon of the British Railways. The train became divided into three sections and a number of the coaches were tilted on their sides towards the down line, but none of the 150 passengers was injured. A relief train left Crewe at 2.55 a.m. to collected the passengers so that they could continue their journeys.
The permanent way was seriously damaged, but the up line was opened for traffic at 7.11 a.m. this morning and the down line at 12 noon.
Colonel W. P. Reed, an Inspecting Officer of Railways, examined the site yesterday, and he will open an inquiry into the accident on Friday, 12th February, at Crewe.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: Although both sides of the House will have been glad to hear that there were no casualties on this occasion, would my right hon. Friend consider that there have been since 1948 over 1,000 railway accidents each year or an average—

Mr. Gordon Walker: On a point of order. Is it in order, Sir, to ask a supplementary question which is so far from the terms of the original Question?

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: Further to that point of order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. No doubt the hon. and gallant Member will ensure that he keeps within the rules of order by relating his supplementary to the Question and the Answer given.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: The purpose of my supplementary question will appear like a beautiful flower opening in the sun.
The point of my question is that since 1948 there have been over 1,000 accidents

each year, or an average of over three a day, and over 600 killed and over 9,000 injured—

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. If the hon. and gallant Member does not restrain his supplementary question within the rule of order, he will not be allowed to ask it.

Mr. Short: On a point of order. Quite apart from the relevance of the supplementary question, which is surely an abuse of the rules of the House, may I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker? Does the fact that you have allowed this Question, and the fact that you allowed a Private Notice Question yesterday from the hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth (Dame Irene Ward), dealing with a newspaper report which proved to be completely "phoney", indicate some relaxation of the rules?

Mr. Speaker: It is not intended to do so. I agree that questions about accidents in the constituencies of hon. Members are anomalous. They are accepted as anomalous by Erskine May, but it has long been the practice of the House to allow them.

Mr. S. Silverman: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short), and your answer to it, Sir, is not the fact that Private Notice Questions on accidents in the constituencies of hon. Members are an accepted exception to the general rule an additional reason for supplementary questions to be related strictly to the Question of which Private Notice was given?

Mr. Speaker: Yes, I think that the hon. Member is quite right.

Mr. D. Griffiths: Further to that, Sir, is it not a custom of the House that Private Notice Questions are asked when fatal accidents arise, and that although this accident might have been serious, the damage has been infinitesimal? Therefore, regardless of the point of view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman on a constituency matter, I suggest that advantage is being taken by him of the use of a Private Notice Question and of the custom of the House, and I suggest, with respect, that Private Notice Questions should not be asked unless there has been a fatal accident.

Mr. Speaker: This is one of the matters which the House entrusts to the absolute discretion of the Chair, namely, whether or not a Private Notice Question is allowed. It seems to be a matter of good fortune on this occasion that although nine coaches were derailed there was not a fatal accident. I hope that the hon. and gallant Member will try to ask his supplementary question in a way that is relevant to the Question.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: Sir, with great respect—

Hon. Members: Apologise.

Mrs. White: On a point of order, Sir. With the greatest respect, the matter cannot be left at this point, because there must be some degree of seriousness in the accident before a Private Notice Question can be permitted. If we are to accept your Ruling as you have now given it, the most trivial matter could be raised under the guise of an accident in a Member's constituency.

Mr. Speaker: I would not seek to allow the most trivial matter to be raised. The hon. Member and the House will follow that the Chair may be limited at the moment of the Private Notice Question being submitted by what appears in the newspapers about the accident in question. From what appeared in the newspapers about this one it did not appear to be in the least trivial. As an accident it was grave enough, but the consequences were not as grave as they might have been.

Mr. D. Griffiths: Hon. Members should read the Yorkshire newspapers.

Mr. Speaker: That was the appearance of it and although the Chair may sometimes be misled, like other mortals, by the appearance of things, I hope that the House will not impose upon me in the matter a rigid rule. I would never seek to allow Private Notice Questions to pass by the Chair unless I, to my best judgment, conceived them to come within the rule with regard to public importance.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: In view of what I have asked my right hon. Friend, would he consider—

Mr. J. Hynd: May I with all respect put this point of order, Mr. Speaker?

You have just said that absolute discretion must rest with the Chair in deciding whether or not a Private Notice Question is in order. Since it is now clear that the purpose of the Question was not genuine, since it was put down for the purpose not of the hon. and gallant Gentleman concerning himself with the consideration of his constituents, but of continuing an attack on the nationalised industries, and since it is now apparent from his attempted supplementary question that he has no intention of doing anything else but try to exploit the occasion for that purpose, is it not incumbent on the Chair, with its responsibility, to ensure that this is not permitted?

Mr. Speaker: First, the hon. Member puts his gloss on the original Question. I would not necessarily have to accept that, and it might not be fair to the hon. and gallant Member's Question to do so.
With regard to the supplementary question, I respectfully agree that its beginning was unfortunate. I still hope that it has some proper substance, and that the House will allow me to hear what it is.

Lieut. - Colonel Bromley - Davenport: In view of what I asked my right hon. Friend, would he consider setting up a court of inquiry to inquire into the cause of these terrible accidents and try and make our railways less dangerous?

Mr. Marples: An inquiry is to be held on this accident, and the report of the inspecting officer will be published in due course. I would prefer to wait for that.

Sir J. Barlow: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I was on the site of the accident at dusk the evening before, as some very interesting operations were taking place, and soon after breakfast, following the accident? Is he further aware that there was supposed to be a 10-mile speed limit for trains over the temporary line? From the way in which the coaches came to rest it would appear that there had been considerable negligence.

Mr. Marples: I think that the inspecting officer will go into all the relevant details.

PROCEDURE

Mr. Speaker: I have some observations to address to the House about procedure.
Following on the debate on procedure yesterday, I propose, as from today, to allow the time for a Count to be extended to four minutes; to direct that as from Thursday the Prime Minister's Questions shall start at No. 40; and that after Monday the number of hon. Members' starred Questions shall be reduced from three to two.
I also propose, on and from Thursday, to change the arrangement for the Ballot for the half-hour Adjournment to conform with the recommendations of the Committee.
Details of these arrangements will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): May I thank you, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the House for so kindly giving us your opinion on these matters and for taking this action?

Mr. W. R. Williams: On a point of order. As one who is interested in the Adjournment debate tonight, I wonder whether you would care to enlarge on the point you just touched on, Mr. Speaker, and say whether I shall be in a position to refer to possible new legislation in connection with my Adjournment debate tonight.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member cannot advance the situation until we are armed with the new Standing Order, which is not yet.

Following are the details of the arrangements:

1. Yesterday, the Leader of the House, in opening the debate on Procedure, said that some of the Committee's recommendations could be implemented upon my authority and that unless the House, in the debate that was to follow, prayed strongly adverse to those recommendations I would put them into operation.
2. No objection was made to the proposals in question sc I shall from today allow hon. Members four minutes in which to assemble before I count the House.
3. On Thursday and thenceforth on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have directed that the Prime Minister's Questions shall start at No. 40.
4. On Thursday instead of holding a ballot for Adjournments for the following week the

eight days, Tuesday 16th, Wednesday 17th, Friday 19th, Monday 22nd, Tuesday 23rd, Wednesday 24th, Friday 26th and Monday 29th February will be ballotted for, the first eight names drawn successively being allotted one of the above days. Thursdays 18th and 25th February will be reserved for subjects to be chosen by me. A similar ballot will be held on subsequent Thursdays at fortnightly intervals, but no Member's name will he carried forward from one ballot to another. Members successful in a ballot may not enter their names for the one next succeeding.
5. Forty-eight hours' notice will be required for a change of subject of a ballotted Adjournment Motion, and the change of subject will be notified in the Notice Paper. When a Member does not wish to pursue the subject of a ballotted Adjournment Motion and cannot give forty-eight hours' notice, his right to the Adjournment will lapse. On Thursdays, as selection relates to the subject and not the Member, I consider that no alteration of subject should be permissible without my consent.
6. I am directing that no Member may in future give notice of more than two Questions for Oral Answer for any one day and that beginning on Monday next, 15th February, if any Member has more than two Questions for Oral Answer on the Order Paper, the third and subsequent Questions shall be unstarred unless the Member concerned has signified his desire to postpone them.
7. The revised form of Order Paper is ready to be sent to the Committee on Publications and Debates Reports.
9th February, 1960.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

National Health Service Glasses (Supply)

Commander Pursey: I beg to give notice that on Monday, 22nd February, I shall call attention to the supply of National Health Service spectacles, and move a Resolution.

Corporal Punishment

Sir C. Taylor: I beg to give notice that on Monday, 22nd February, I shall call attention to the question of corporal punishment, and move a Resolution.

Disabled Persons (Motor Cars)

Mr. Redhead: I beg to give notice that on Monday, 22nd February, I shall call attention to the desirability of extending to disabled persons insured under the Industrial Injuries Act the same facilities for the supply of motor cars as are provided for persons disabled in war, and move a Resolution.

PUBLIC SERVICE VEHICLES (TRAVEL CONCESSIONS) ACT, 1955 (AMENDMENT)

4.9 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision with respect to the allowing of free travel or reduced fares on public service vehicles run by local authorities, and for purposes connected therewith.

In 1954, about—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must be able to hear the hon. Member who is seeking the leave of the House to do something.

Mr. Short: In 1954, about 96 local authorities throughout the country, local authorities which owned their own transport undertakings, were operating schemes of concessionary fares, chiefly for old people, blind people, children and disabled persons. In 1954, a Birmingham ratepayer, Mr. Prescott, in the Court of Chancery, challenged the Birmingham Corporation's scheme for concessionary travel to old-age pensioners.
The court held that the corporation had no power to initiate such a scheme, or to prohibit such a scheme. Therefore, the question whether the scheme was ultra vires the corporation would have to be decided on general principles. The court decided that as the corporation had a duty to hold a balance between all sections of its population and that as this concessionary travel scheme for old people meant, in fact, a gift to one section of the population it amounted to a differentiation and therefore was ultra vires the corporation.
That meant that travel concessionary schemes on local authority transport throughout the country were illegal. Many local authorities began to cancel their schemes for concessionary travel. They were faced with that, or with each of the 96 of them promoting their own Private Bills, because the Government took no action to remedy the situation.
At that point, in 1954, I was fortunate enough to draw a place in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills and I introduced a Bill which eventually became the Public Service Vehicles (Travel Concessions) Act, 1955. That Measure was given Government time before the General Election of May, 1955, and was

the only Private Member's Bill which was carried in that year.
As I introduced it, that Act would have legalised all the powers to introduce concessionary travel schemes which local authorities were operating and which they thought and assumed they possessed, until the Birmingham court case. That Act set limits to the categories to whom concessionary fares could have been granted.
The Government of the day used their majority to amend the Bill and, instead of giving local authorities the discretion which they previously assumed they possessed, the effect of the Government's Amendment was to freeze the travel concession pattern throughout the country as it was on the day of the Birmingham case, in November, 1954. That is, it legalised concessions which existed in November, 1954, but it did not empower any local authority to increase or to extend them in any way.
My hon. Friends and I who were concerned with that Measure warned the Government that if they persisted in their Amendment they would solve the immediate problem, but they would very soon create a tangle of anomalies throughout the country. That is precisely what has happened. The whole question of concessionary travel on local authority transport is now one great jungle of anomalies and administrative difficulties and those anomalies increase almost every week.
The first of the chief anomalies is that local authorities who own their own transport and who were not operating concessionary fares in November, 1954, cannot introduce such concessionary fares now.
Secondly, authorities which granted concessionary fares in 1954 are unable now to extend or to vary them in any way.
I will briefly explain to the House how that works out. For example, local authorities owning transport systems cannot apply their concessionary fares to new routes which have come into existence since 1954, yet there is scarcely a town in the country which has not built great new housing estates since November, 1954, estates which are served by new bus and trolley bus routes. However, concessionary fares for old people and blind people, and so on, cannot be


operated on those new routes. That is causing tremendous difficulty and a great deal of bad feeling throughout the country.
Thirdly, some concessions were related to personal income, and they cannot now be varied to take account of changes in income levels since 1954.
Fourthly, a local authority cannot amend the days or hours of availability of concessionary fares, no matter what industrial or social changes have taken place in its locality.
Fifthly a local authority cannot amend the classes of grantees for concessionary Fares, even within the limits of qualified persons within my Act. If a local authority gave concessions to only three out of the four categories in 1954, it cannot now extend the concession to the fourth category.
Sixthly, with some local authorities there are difficulties about the qualifications of old-age pensioners. Some schemes, before 1954, used the words, "old-age pensioners resident within the borough". Many authorities have built old people's homes outside the borough boundaries, as we have in my local authority, and those old people cannot now take advantage of the concessionary fares because they are no longer resident within the borough and the local authority is unable to alter the scheme.
Seventhly, the 1955 legislation, as it was amended by the Government, did not give local authorities power to levy a rate for the estimated value of the concession granted.
Eighthly, a local authority cannot make a contribution to a private company operator, although it can do so to another local authority. Almost every hon. Member will have an estate in his constituency served by a private company operator, but the local authority concerned cannot make any contribution in respect of concessions by that company.
With the development of our cities throughout the country, existing concessions affect 8 million or 9 million people and, as development has gone on, the anomalies have created a quite ridiculous situation. The anomalies are completely indefensible and have to be cleared up without delay.
If the Government meant what they said during the passage of the Local

Government Act, 1958, when the general grant was introduced, they should agree that local authorities should be given discretionary powers about concessionary fares in the same way as they have discretionary powers about other local government matters.
After all, members of the Government cannot go round the country saying that they intend to give more power to local authorities and then deny them power which they all believe they had until Mr. Prescott got to work in the High Court in 1954.
The Bill I seek to introduce is simply to give them the power which they assumed they had before the Birmingham case. As I said, it sets a limit to the concessions which can be granted, restricting them to the four categories of people I have mentioned, and does not include local councillors.
It may be argued, as some hon. Members opposite argued in 1954, that provision for old-age pensioners, blind persons and disabled persons is now a matter for the Government and not for local authorities and that such people should be given an adequate income, so that price concessions of all kinds, whether concessionary coal or concessionary travel, would be unnecessary.
I would be the first to agree with that and I am sure that my hon. and right hon. Friends will concur, but it is obvious that at the moment the community is not ready to shoulder the considerable burden of ensuring that when people retire or go blind or become gravely disabled they shall not suffer a catastrophic drop in income. Until the community is ready to take on that burden, it would appear to be a humane and Christian attitude by local authorities to wish to assist those categories of people.
The purpose of the Bill is simply to enable them to do so and I hope that the House will enable the Bill to proceed.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Short, Miss Bacon, Mrs. Braddock, Mr. G. Darling, Mr. Mitchison, Mr. Monslow, Mr. Popplewell, Mr. G. Thomas, Mr. H. Wilson, and Mr. Wheeldon.

PUBLIC SERVICE VEHICLES (TRAVEL CONCESSIONS) ACT, 1955 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to make further provision with respect to the allowing of free travel or reduced fares on public service vehicles run by local authorities, and for purposes connected therewith, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 4th March and to be printed. [Bill 64.]

Orders of the Day — MENTAL HEALTH (SCOTLAND) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.20 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The purpose of this Bill, as the House knows, is to reform on modern lines the existing statute law on mental disorder. At present we have a whole series of Acts, some of them very old and much amended. They are a sort of legal labyrinth in which it is very easy to get lost. We intend to substitute for all this, one comprehensive code, as straightforward as the complexities of the subject permit, and one which is in keeping with present ideas about the treatment of mental disorder both in hospital and in the community. I am sure that the whole House will agree that this major reform is necessary.
I thought it desirable to publish an explanatory White Paper with the Bill so that Members and those outside the House who are interested in this subject should have available in reasonably convenient form an outline of the main provisions the Bill contains. I hope that hon. Members have found it of value. I should like to say at the outset that I shall welcome criticism from whatever part of the House it comes, and I will consider very carefully any suggestion which is designed to improve the Bill.
The last major Scottish legislation on this subject was in 1913 with the Mental Deficiency (Scotland) Act. The House might be interested to know that on that occasion the Government of the day—and I note the date—took the view that because the House had recently given a Second Reading to a somewhat similar Bill for England and Wales, they might be prepared to dispose of the Second Reading of the Scottish Bill very briefly—in fact, in thirteen minutes at the end of the day's business. Their optimism proved unrealistic. I hasten to assure the House that I have no intention of attempting to follow this precedent.
On the contrary, I must ask for indulgence if I must take some little time to explain first the principles on which


the Bill is based, and then some of its main provisions, more especially those which differ, for reasons which I shall give, from the Mental Health Act which my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health piloted through the last Parliament for England and Wales.
First, the principles underlying the Bill.
Although we propose to repeal the existing Acts and enact a new code, that does not mean that the existing law was not good in its time, and that some of it is not good even now. Indeed, on this occasion we ought to acknowledge the foresight and the very enlightened approach of our predecessors. The original Lunacy (Scotland) Act of 1857 was founded on the Report of a Royal Commission, which is a remarkable document in many ways. It contains, for example, a description of what a mental hospital should be that even now sets us a high standard. The old Scottish legislation, too, inadequate and confusing as it is in some respects, has worked well in many ways. In particular, we have very little evidence that the existing law is unsatisfactory in practice, from the point of view of the liberty of the subject.
In these circumstances it is not surprising that when the Scottish Health Services Council Committee considered how the Royal Commission's Report might apply to Scotland, they took the view that the best traditional features of Scottish law and practice ought to be preserved and that they were not justified merely for the sake of uniformity in sacrificing provisions which have worked well in Scotland and in which the public have confidence. I accept that view, and our first principle, therefore, is to preserve in modern form the best features of the existing law.
Next, I come to the liberty of the subject. It is inherent in the types of mental disorder with which the Bill deals that the unfortunate patient sometimes cannot appreciate what is in his own best interest by way of treatment and care. An element of compulsion is therefore necessary in the patient's interest and it is sometimes also necessary for the protection of others. In farming this Bill we have had to keep the balance between the patient's best interests and the safety of the community

on the one hand, and a proper regard for the patient's liberty on the other. Wherever there has been legitimate doubt, we have tried to come down on the side of the patient's liberty by including the most ample safeguards we could devise. It is for this reason, as I shall explain later, that we have retained the Sheriff's part in the procedure for compulsory detention and we have retained an independent central body, the Mental Welfare Board.
In the third place, the main concern of this Bill is to lay down the rules which must be observed by those who are concerned with care and treatment. It gives the patient and others acting on his behalf the rights of redress he must have where zeal for his treatment and care might outrun proper discretion. The Bill provides a framework within which treatment and care proceed. For these things we depend on a devoted army of doctors, nurses, guardians, welfare officers, social workers, and last but not least, individuals giving their time on a voluntary basis. We have tried to keep in mind their point of view, and in particular the views of our Scottish psychiatrists. My third principle, therefore, in framing this Bill has been, particularly on medical matters, to take account, wherever I could, of the weight of opinion among the Scottish doctors who are concerned with the treatment of mental disorder.
These, then, are the three main threads running through this Bill—to retain the best features of the existing law, to weigh the balance wherever there is doubt in favour of the liberty of the subject, and to devise a code which is in harmony with authoritative medical opinion.
I now come to the actual provision of the Bill. At this point I should like to acknowledge the debt I owe to the two Reports prepared by the Scottish Health Services Council's Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. John Dunlop. They undertook within a very short time a comprehensive review of the recommendations made for England and Wales by the Royal Commission and said how they thought they should be applied in Scotland. This was a powerful committee, including some of the leading psychiatrists and some of the laymen most informed on this whole subject in Scotland, and the Bill is to a very considerable extent based on the advice they


have given which was endorsed by the Scottish Health Services Council itself. I am sure that the House as a whole will wish me to express our appreciation of the work of this Committee.
Let me now say something in detail about the content of the Bill. It is in nine Parts, and there are five Schedules dealing with such matters as transitional provisions and the repeal and amendment of other enactments. At the very beginning of Part I of the Bill the existing lunacy and mental deficiency statutes are comprehensively repealed. As the Fifth Schedule shows, this involves the repeal of nine Acts, the earliest dating from over a hundred years ago, as well as numerous details of other Acts. Clearly, we need a new instrument. While we do not suggest that the present code has involved injustice or has denied to the mentally sick the help that they require, we believe that the time has come for a new and modern statute which can be the basis for further advances.
The Bill proceeds to the establishment of a new body to be called the Mental Welfare Board for Scotland, to exercise protective functions in respect of people whose mental disorder makes them incapable of adequately protecting their persons or their interests. This is at present among the functions—though perhaps not so clearly stated as we now have it in Clause 4 of the Bill—of the General Board of Control for Scotland who are to cease to exist when the new Board comes into being. The General Board of Control was brought into existence, under a different title, by the Lunacy (Scotland) Act, of 1857. It may interest hon. Members to know that that Act proposed that the Board of Commissioners in Lunacy (as they were then known) should cease to exist after five years, after which the task of ensuring that all went well was to be taken over by paid inspectors-general. When Parliament next turned its mind to this legislation, however, five years later, the Board had apparently earned their spurs and they were continued in existence indefinitely. The present Board is widely held in very high esteem in Scotland and I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the work of its present Chairman, Dr. Jardine, and the Commissioners who perform this important public service.
It seems, however, right that a new statute should give effect to essential changes in function and this the Bill sets out to do. The Dunlop Committee clearly had in mind that what should be preserved was the protective functions of the Board, but even after the introduction of the National Health Service the present Board were left with a number of duties administrative in character rather than protective of the liberty and safety of the patient. The inconsistency of the Board's retaining one of these duties was recognised by the Committee when they suggested that its management of what are at present the State Mental Hospital and State Institution should pass to another central body. It seems right too that the Board should be relieved of other administrative functions such as the licensing of private hospitals.
There remained the question of the Board's name. Whatever validity the name may have had in 1913, when there were district Boards of Control as well as the General Board, there is no doubt that the title no longer has a meaning appropriate to the functions the protective body are to perform. To find an alternative title was not easy, but we think that "the Mental Welfare Board for Scotland" will be generally accepted. It stresses the Board's essential concern with the welfare of the individual patient and at the same time, we feel, avoids confusion between the protective body and those who actually provide and manage the mental health services.
There is one further Clause that I must mention in Part I of the Bill—Clause 6. It is a short Clause, less than two lines in length, defining the term "mental disorder", which is used throughout the Bill as the general term for all those requiring help because of their mental condition. The term is defined very briefly to mean mental illness or mental deficiency however caused or manifested. These two terms, mental illness and mental deficiency, are not defined in the Bill. Each is accordingly used in its accepted clinical sense and not with a special statutory meaning. This is a matter which we can discuss in more detail when the Bill goes into Committee. The Bill here follows the recommendation of the Dunlop Committee and we believe this to be what the medical profession in Scotland wish to have. Scottish doctors are satisfied that


this definition will enable them to reach and assist all those for whom the medical services may have something to offer. For my part, I am satisfied that the scope of compulsory powers is precisely the same as under the Mental Health Act which the last Parliament passed for England and Wales.
I now pass to Part II of the Bill which is concerned with local authority services. A great deal has been said, and has rightly been said, in recent years about the part that care in the community can play in assisting the mentally ill and mentally defective Clearly, our hospitals and the specialist services based on them will continue to play a vital part in dealing with mental disorders. The great strides that medical science has made, however, coupled with a wider public understanding and a more tolerant attitude to mental disorder, make it more often possible to treat patients satisfactorily without cutting them off at all from their homes. Full expansion of this community care of the mentally disordered requires all the resources that can help to be used to the full.
This part of the Bill therefore makes it possible for local authorities, as health authorities, as welfare authorities, as children authorities, and as education authorities to provide all the services that may contribute to the well-being of the mentally disordered in the community. Thus Clause 7 includes among the purposes for which local health authorities may make arrangements a number of services for the mentally disordered, ranging from provision of residential accommodation to informal supervision of mental defectives.
Clauses 8 and 9 ensure that welfare authorities and children authorities are not precluded from using their powers to assist the mentally disordered by accommodating them where appropriate in accommodation that may have been initially provided for other purposes. Clause 10 seeks to ensure that no person, notably children and young persons, is left without the comfort of visits when in hospital whether for mental disorder or for any other reason. The later Clauses of this Part of the Bill are concerned with continuing existing provisions for suitable training and occupation of mental defectives and of other mentally disordered children with an

added power to compel all children of school age to attend a training and occupation centre provided by a local health authority.
Part III of the Bill is concerned with private hospitals and with the registration of residential homes for mentally disordered persons. I should point out that the definition of hospital given in Clause 109 of the Bill includes a private hospital registered under this Part of the Bill, and that "private hospital" is used in a very limited sense. It is confined to premises for the reception and treatment of patients who are subject to detention under the Bill.
We are not concerned here with, for example, a nursing home which may include among its patients an old person who may at times be mentally confused but is not subject to the compulsory provisions of the Bill. These nursing homes will continue as hitherto to be registered under the Nursing Homes Registration (Scotland) Act, 1938, by the local authority. We are concerned here with the central registration of those hospitals, at present few in number and likely never to be many, which are privately owned and in which patients may be detained. The places to which these provisions would at present apply are five certified institutions and one private hospital run by the Roman Catholic authorities. At present, registration and licensing of these institutions and hospital is done by the General Board of Control, and I think that it is appropriate that the function should pass to the Secretary of State.
This Part of the Bill also deals with residential homes for mentally disordered persons, bringing them within the scope of the system of registration and inspection of homes for disabled persons and old persons, already provided in the National Assistance Act of 1948.
I come now to Part IV of the Bill, which may be regarded as the keystone of the whole so far as the liberty of the subject is concerned. We have gone to great pains to ensure that this Part of the Bill holds the balance between preservation of the individual's liberty and protection of society. At a very early stage in this part—Clause 23 (3)—it is specifically stated that nothing in the Bill is to prevent a patient from receiving


the treatment he needs without being liable to detention. More and more of the patients who enter our hospitals for treatment for mental disorder do so voluntarily. Quite apart from those entering psychiatric units to which the present Lunacy Acts do not apply at all, as many as four out of five of the patients entering mental hospitals do so voluntarily. At present, however, they still have to sign an application for admission which requires the approval of the General Board of Control. This has the unfortunate result that those who may have no objection to entering hospital, but whose condition makes them unable to sign a form, have at present to be certified. Old people in particular suffer in this way.
The Bill changes the procedure to avoid this situation. In future, patients will be able to enter hospital for treatment for their mental disorder just as they can at present for physical disorder without signing forms which have to be approved. The Bill achieves this first by repealing the existing provision requiring mental hospitals to be designated and so set apart from the rest of the hospital service. Secondly, Clause 23 makes it clear that formal procedure will be used only when compulsion is really necessary. This important change will reduce the proportion of patients detained under compulsory powers. There will remain some, however, for whom compulsion continues to be necessary and this somewhat complex part of the Bill has been provided to ensure that in these circumstances there will be proper safeguards.
The first half dozen Clauses of the part lay down the tests that must be made before compulsion can be used. I trust that the House does not feel that I am going into too much detail. I believe that this very important part of the Bill should be fully explained at this stage.
First the person concerned must be suffering from a mental disorder that requires or is susceptible to medical treatment. Then two doctors must make recommendations in due form for his admission to hospital or reception into guardianship. Each has to state the form of mental disorder from which he believes the patient is suffering; he

must give an opinion also that the disorder is of a nature or degree warranting detention in hospital or reception into guardianship and that the interests of the health or safety of the patient or the protection of other persons cannot be secured otherwise than by detention in hospital. Where the patient is to be placed under guardianship, the statement required is that this is necessary in the interests of his health or safety or for the protection of others.
In every case, therefore, the doctors must address their minds to the question whether the mental disorder requires or is suscepitible to medical treatment, whether it is mental illness or mental deficiency, whether it is of such a nature or degree as to warrant detention or reception into guardianship, and, last, whether the health or safety of the patient or the protection of others requires the proposed use of compulsion. The form of the medical recommendations is to be prescribed in detail and doctors will be guided towards giving in effect a fairly full account of the patient's condition. These, quite properly, are very restrictive conditions for the use of compulsory powers.
There is, further, specific provision in Clauses 23 and 40 of the Bill for two special classes of patients. These are patients whose mental deficiency does not make them incapable of living an independent life or of guarding themselves against serious exploitation, and those who are suffering from a mental illness recognisable only because of persistent disorders of behaviour. The use of compulsion in relation to such patients, as respects either admission to hospital or guardianship, presents special problems. What the Bill proposes is that compulsory powers can be invoked in relation only to persons under the age of 21; but where this has been done these powers can continue to be exercised until the person reaches 25.
Clause 28 provides for the submission of the documents relating to admission or guardianship to the sheriff for his approval. The intention is that before any person is deprived of his liberty, a judicial authority should have an opportunity of ensuring that the statutory provisions have been properly and reasonably carried out. The standing, training and experience of the sheriff clearly make him the proper man to continue


this function, which varies only slightly from that he performs under the present law. I have found in the consultations that have been held in the preparation of the Bill that there is complete unanimity among those consulted that the sheriff's part in compulsory procedure should be retained.
I should like to point out too, that under later provisions of the Bill the sheriff is to continue to act as a court of appeal against wrongful or improper detention. The sheriff's part in these matters has a long tradition in Scotland which is evidently accepted, and indeed welcomed, not only by law, but medical opinion, and I hope that the manner in which it is proposed to continue this will commend itself to the House.
The effect of the admission procedure when carried out in full with the sheriff's approval will be to permit the admission of the patient to hospital and his detention there for one year; and similarly as regards guardianship. Before the year is completed he has to be medically examined. The doctor concerned may then report that further detention, or care under guardianship, is necessary, whereupon the patient will be liable to detention or guardianship for a further year, and so on thereafter for periods of two years at a time. On every occasion of renewal of detention the patient will have a right to appeal to the sheriff to order his discharge.
At any time during detention the nearest relative of the patient may take action with a view to taking a patient away from hospital or guardianship. He can arrange removal unless the doctor in charge of the patient reports that the nature or degree of the patient's mental disorder at that time would still warrant compulsory detention, or, with a hospital patient, that if he were discharged he would be likely to be a danger to himself or other persons. If the doctor so reports, the patient is not discharged, but the nearest relative may then appeal to the sheriff to order his discharge.
Besides this right of the nearest relative, and the power of the sheriff to order discharge on appeal, the board of management of the hospital in hospital cases and the local health authority in guardianship cases are to be able at any time, with the consent of the doctor concerned, to discharge a patient. In addition, the doctor concerned and the Mental Welfare Board

are to have a duty—not merely a power, but a duty—to discharge any patient whenever he or they are satisfied, either that he is not suffering from mental disorder, or that it is not necessary in the interests of his health or safety or for the protection of other persons that he should continue to be subject to compulsion.
In this way we have sought to provide that no person becomes liable to compulsion or continues to be detained unnecessarily. While the issue on the need for detention is primarily a medical one, we have sought to provide a right of formal appeal to the sheriff on those occasions when it seemed necessary. In addition, I would like to emphasise that a patient, or his relative, will also have the right of access to the Mental Welfare Board at any time. The Board has a duty to look into any case where it appears to it that there may be improper detention and to discharge the patient where appropriate.
Before I leave this Part of the Bill, I should like to mention one matter in which I know this House is rightly jealous of the rights of the individual. Clause 34 and Clause 100 of the Bill provide for the interception of patients' correspondence. Censorship of this sort is always a delicate matter, but I hope it will be agreed when the Clause has been studied that we have drawn the power as narrowly as the interests of the patients allow.
With Part V we come to the special provisions dealing with mentally disordered persons involved in criminal proceedings of one kind or another. We are making no startling or fundamental changes in existing law and practice, which I think it would be generally agreed has worked well and fairly for many years. Existing procedures have, however, been adapted to fit in with the general principles and terminology of the Bill.
Perhaps the most important Clauses are 55, 58 and 60. Clause 55 will enable the courts, as an alternative to imprisonment or other penal sanctions, to make orders for the admission to hospital or placing under guardianship of persons involved in criminal charges who are found, on appropriate medical evidence, to be mentally disordered. Clause 58 provides that such persons shall be treated in the same way as patients admitted to hospital or guardianship under the


ordinary procedures of Part IV, with two principal exceptions; namely, the nearest relative's power of discharge and the age limits on the admission or detention of certain patients under Part IV will not apply. In other words, these persons, if their disorder manifests itself in criminal acts, can be admitted and detained at any age, so long as their condition calls for medical treatment. This, I think, is clearly right and proper.
Clause 60 provides that where a court, in criminal proceedings, makes an order for the admission of a person to hospital the court may, if it thinks it necessary for the protection of the public to do so, add an order restricting the patient's discharge. If a restriction order is made, the patient's discharge will be subject to the control of the Secretary of State.
Clause 63 makes certain changes in the procedure to be followed in relation to persons found insane in certain criminal proceedings. It has long been part of the common law of Scotland that a person charged on indictment who is, on account of insanity, unable to understand the charge against him or instruct his defence, cannot be tried; and that insanity may, in certain circumstances, be a ground of acquittal even where the accused did the act charged. The Bill does not alter these rules of the common law. It provides for the detention of the persons concerned as if they were subject to a hospital order plus a restriction order. This comes in practice to the same as the provision in the existing law for "detention at Her Majesty's Pleasure", but the opportunity is taken, in this context, to drop that somewhat archaic phrase.
The most important change in the law effected by Clause 63 is the application of the common law rules relating to insanity in bar of trial to summary courts. Under the existing law a summary criminal court may order the detention in a mental hospital of a person charged before it only if it is satisfied on evidence that the accused did the act charged. But it has been represented that, where the mental disorder of the accused person is such that if he were charged on indictment, he would be found insane in bar of trial, this provision is in conflict with the general principles of the law of Scotland, since it involves leading evidence against

a person who is unable to defend himself. Clause 63 removes this conflict by applying to the sheriff summary court the common law relating to insanity standing in bar of trial.
Clause 54 contains an important new provision which will enable a court to commit to hospital instead of remanding in custody persons who appear to be mentally disordered. Clauses 65 to 71 contain various provisions for the transfer to hospital of people detained in prisons, borstals, approved schools and similar establishments who are found to be mentally disordered.
As I have said, the changes which Part V of the Bill makes in the existing law are principally designed to bring the treatment of mentally disordered people who have been involved in criminal proceedings into line with the general provisions of the Bill for the treatment of mental patients. An important practical question is, therefore, how is Part IV of the Bill to be applied to patients who have been dealt with under Part V? This is inevitably a somewhat complicated matter, but all the answers, I trust, are to be found in the ingenious table contained in the Second Schedule of the Bill, which I commend to hon. Members to round off their study of Part V.
I have already taken up a good deal of the time of the House, but I should like to add a little explanation of the later Parts of the Bill. Part VI is concerned with the transfer of patients subject to compulsion between Scotland and other countries in the United Kingdom. This completes the simplification of these matters begun in the Mental Health Act, 1959. The general principle that we have adopted is that any patient subject to detention or guardianship should, on transfer to another country, be treated in accordance with the mental health code of the receiving country.
Part VII of the Bill replaces existing provisions for State Mental Hospitals and State Institutions for mental defectives. These are hospitals for patients requiring conditions of special security. The State Mental Hospital at Carstairs is provided under the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, 1949, while the State Institution adjacent to it is provided under the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Act, 1913. Under the present


statute they are managed by the General Board of Control for Scotland, but as I have said earlier it seems desirable to provide for their management by someone other than the body constituted to protect the individual patient. Accordingly, the Bill leaves the Secretary of State free to constitute special committees to manage these hospitals on his behalf. They will not come within the arrangements for regional administration of hospital and specialist services within the National Health Service.
Part VIII of the Bill is concerned with patients' property. At present if a person cannot manage his affairs, the court may appoint a curator to do this for him. The Bill makes no fundamental change in the law, but it seeks to stop up one gap in the present provisions. Occasionally it is found that there is no one to make the necessary approach to the courts in the ordinary way and this cannot at present be remedied short of an application to the Court of Session. The Bill seeks to provide for this by requiring the local health authority to act in these circumstances.
Part IX of the Bill deals with miscellaneous matters to which I think I need make no detailed reference here, although I should not like it to be thought that I did not 'regard as important such Clauses as those dealing with ill-treatment of patients or with the offence of assisting patients subject to detention to be absent without leave.
I hope that the House will consider that I have fully explained the Bill. The subject dealt with in the Bill is one which I am sure all of us approach with an honest endeavour to make the best provision possible. We for our part shall give careful consideration to any suggestions put forward to improve the Bill, but I am sure that in principle at least it will meet with the approval of the House.

4.54 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House are grateful to the Secretary of State for his explanation of a Bill which, in parts, is very difficult, highly technical and legal. We on this side welcome the Bill. During the past twelve years, since 1948, the National Health Service has performed wonderful work in this country by providing for our people a service which is admired and

envied by ordinary people all over the world. I will go so far as to say that if the first Government with a Labour majority had done nothing else but make this service available to all our people, in face of strong opposition, its time in office would certainly not have been in vain. I am sure that I am voicing the wishes of all when I wish my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who introduced the National Health Service, a speedy recovery to full health.
As in other fields of medicine, there have been important developments in the treatment of patients suffering from mental illness, but I do not think that anyone would deny that so far mental health has been the Cinderella of the National Health Service. We wish to make certain that the provisions of the Bill will accord that the care of the menally ill all that modern science and enlightened thought can give.
The Bill could represent a revolution in our attitude to mental illness. Although the attitude of the general public has changed considerably in the past few years, in the minds of many people there is still a stigma attached to mental illness in any form. It is an improvement, we feel, that the word "mental" will disappear from the name of the hospital, but names tend to stick in an area, and it seems to me that it will be an even greater improvement when those who are gravely mentally ill can be treated in a general hospital and when many others of the mentally ill are able to remain at home or in a hostel during treatment. All of that is made possible under the provisions of the Bill.
I could not emphasise too strongly the need for the after-care of those who suffer from mental illness. If this aftercare is to be successful, as I think we all wish it to be, many psychiatric social workers will be needed, both for those who have been mentally ill and, in many instances, to help and to advise the families of those people. We should like to know what provision the Government propose to make, first for the recruitment and secondly for the training of such workers. This will be highly specialised work. Every incentive must be given to recruit suitable men and women for this work and we must ensure that their conditions are


sufficiently good that they will remain in the work. I hope that when the Joint Under-Secretary of State winds up the debate he will tell us something about the ideas which the Government have both for the recruitment and for the training of those people, who will be of the greatest importance if the community after-care of the mentally ill is to be properly undertaken.
Although we admire the work of the General Board of Control and respect the devotion of its members who, in many cases, have shown great devotion, it seems to me an improvement to put in its place the Mental Welfare Board. The General Board of Control has a dual responsibility—a responsibility to the Secretary of State for Scotland and another to the patients.
As far as I can learn from my study of the Bill and of the other papers that go with it, the main duty of the Mental Welfare Board will be to protect people who are incapable of looking after their own interests. I think that is a good thing. We also welcome the decision of the Government concerning the duties of the sheriff, since again we feel from our study of these matters that it provides a necessary protection of civil liberties. Indeed, I feel sure that many of the English hon. Members on this side of the House would have liked very much to have had a similar provision in the Bill that applied to England and Wales. We welcome it very much since we feel that it is of the greatest importance that the civil liberty of those mentally afflicted should be safeguarded in every way possible.
These are many of the things with which I agree, but I now want to come to one provision of the Bill with which I disagree very much indeed. We find it in Clause 12, which deals with the training of persons unsuitable for education and with the training provided for mental defectives. The Clause states:
It shall be the duty of the local health authority to provide or secure the provision of suitable training and occupation …
I think that most of my hon. Friends take exception to that provision. Education is not just the teaching of formal subjects such as writing and arithmetic. Whatever training or occupation is provided for any child at all, surely that is

the education from which the child is considered capable of benefiting.
In this enlightened age we do not wish to give the title of "ineducable" to any child at all. The Royal Commission itself wished to limit as far as possible the differential between physical and mental illness. The separation of those children described in Clause 12 from all the other children really makes them very different indeed from the other children. It at once places a stigma upon them, a stigma which in other parts of the Bill we are trying to take away. In Committee we shall argue very strongly indeed that whatever training or occupation is provided for these children, and for youths over 16 years of age, shall be the responsibility of the local education authority and not that of the health authority. In Scotland there are important bodies which support us in that contention.
I now come to what I consider one of the most important parts of the Bill. In paragraph 2 of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum we find the following words:
The Bill does not involve any substantial new net charges upon central or local funds.
At the end of paragraph 4, which deals with certain Acts, we find that the Bill gives
local authorities greater freedom to provide services for mentally disordered persons within their health, welfare or child care services as appropriate.
We fully support that part of the Bill which makes provision for greatly expanded community care. We have no doubts about that. But this will only be possible if the local authorities have the money with which to provide such services. To say that they have the freedom to do it without providing them with adequate finance is as ludicrous as saying to an old-age pensioner with no other source of income than his pension that he is free to go to the Ascot Races or to Honolulu.
The Royal Commission recommended that up to 75 per cent. of local authority provisions in this field should be paid by the Exchequer over a period of time until such services were really established. We in the Labour Party, being seized of the urgency of these matters, and just to show that it is no new


thought on our part, I shall quote from our policy statement on health:
There will be 100 per cent. Exchequer grants for these services until the desired standards are reached.
The Secretary of State may have my copy of "Members One of Another", not because of what it says about mental health only but because of what it says about our whole health services.
Taking the Royal Commission first, it realised very fully, in connection with its proposal that 75 per cent. of the cost should be provided, the importance of the community services that were going to be provided by the local authorities, and also that one of the ways of ensuring that they were provided as speedily as possible was to give them the money from the Exchequer.
If the Government really believe, and I think that they do, that community services must play an important part in the treatment of mentally ill patients, they must realise that the provision of these services will place a very heavy financial burden on the local authorities. Surely the Government are already a ware of the fact that with reference to the provisions under Part III of the National Assistance Act and Part III of the National Health Service Act many local authorities, with the best will in the world, have not been able to make adequate provision for the services specified in those Acts.
It will be no use the Joint Under-Secretary saying to us tonight the provision is or will be made in the block grant. These matters have been thoroughly argued and discussed in the House on many occasions. We shall return to the matter again in Committee, but I want the Joint Under-Secretary when he replies tonight to explain to us exactly what financial help will be given to the local authorities in order to help them provide as speedily as possible the community services mentioned in the Bill.
In the Bill the duty placed upon the local authorities to provide these services is permissive and not mandatory. Again I deprecate very much indeed the fact that the Government have not accepted the strong recommendation of the Royal Commission which we find on page 241, paragraph 715, of its Report. That recommendation is printed in very heavy

black type. That was done to show how strongly the Royal Commission felt about the matter. It says:
And if the general re-orientation of the mental health services which we have recommended, in the direction of a considerable expansion of local authority community services, is to be achieved, we have no doubt that the provision of community services for all groups of mentally disordered patients should be made a duty".
Nothing could be more clear, and the Government in those circumstances should accept the advice of the Royal Commission and make these duties mandatory and not permissive. The people who served on the Royal Commission were very knowledgeable indeed. The Parliamentary Secretary will have to explain to us tonight why the Government have not followed the strong advice of the Royal Commission. I hope that, as the Secretary of State said when he opened the debate, the Government will be ready in this instance to discuss the matter fully in Committee. I hope that the result of those full discussions will mean that eventually these duties will be made mandatory on local authorities.
The Royal Commission reported in May, 1957. Before the Bill is on the Statute Book, over three years will have passed. I do not make any great complaint about that, because it was an immense task for the Government to study the Report and to prepare the legislation. I should like to join with the Secretary of State in congratulating the members of the Committee set up by the Scottish Health Services Council. They did a very good job in a very short time and helped us in the House to come to decisions that perhaps in some instances were different from those which were suggested by the Royal Commission. Three years will have passed since the Royal Commission recommended that these new provisions should be brought in. How soon after the Bill becomes law do the Government expect local authorities in particular to be ready to make the necessary provisions for community care? I ask that particularly, because I remember that in 1918 it was put on the Statute Book that the school leaving age would be raised to fifteen on an appointed day. We had to wait for over twenty years, when a Labour Government honoured that part of the legislation.
A specific time should be stated in the Bill for when local authorities will have to be ready with their plans to put forward to the Secretary of State. The plans should show clearly, first, that they are seized of the importance of community care and, secondly, that they are ready to put into being those measures that will ensure that the best community care is given. I hope that in Committee the Secretary of State will be most amenable and be ready to accept an Amendment which we will table to ensure that we obtain from local authorities their plans within a stated time. This would urge on those local authorities which are a little slow and would help those which try to do a good job.
We wish the Bill to provide us with an opportunity of ensuring that as quickly as possible the mental health services will at least reach the standard of the rest of the National Health Service. To do so, we must have the provision for training facilities as speedily as possible. We must make provision for much more research in mental health than we have ever had before. Money will be needed for both training and research. We want to know from the Government where that money is coming from. Who is to provide it? Whose responsibility will it be? If local authorities are hamstrung with the block grant, we shall not have the initiative, imagination and drive which are necessary to bring into being the recommendations of the Royal Commission.
Since this may be a shortened debate, I have cut down many of the things I wished to say, because I know that some of my hon. Friends wish to take part.

Mr. William Ross: My hon. Friend says that it may be a shortened debate. Is it not the rule that, if a debate is interrupted in these circumstances, the amount of time lost is automatically made up to us afterwards?

Miss Herbison: Yes, I know that, but there are sometimes difficulties because people who want to take part in the debate find it impossible to do so after ten o'clock. It is for that reason that I have attempted to deal with what I thought was important. I did not feel

it my duty, as did the Secretary of State, to go into every aspect of the Bill. I felt that we could do that in Committee. I wanted to show where, in general, we are in agreement, where we disagree and where we feel that improvements can be made.
We certainly welcome the Bill, since it could be a great step forward in alleviating much of the misery that is experienced not only by the people who suffer from mental illness, but also by many of their families. If all of us in the House—not only the back benchers and the front benchers on this side, but the back benchers and front benchers on the Government side—enter into the Committee stage with a desire to improve the Bill, when it leaves the House it will be fit to meet the needs which so many of us believe must be met and which the Royal Commission certainly recommended should be met.

5.18 p.m.

Mr. Forbes Hendry: This is the first time I have had the honour to address the House. I therefore crave the indulgence usually accorded to a maiden speaker. I also crave forgiveness for speaking while suffering from a cold in the head. I ask to be forgiven because I regard this subject as of the greatest importance and as completely free from controversy.
This is a long and obscure Bill and, as the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said, it may contain in its body bones of contention. But these are matters to be dealt with in Committee and do not affect the principle of the Bill, which is completely free from controversy.
Stripped of all its verbiage and administrative detail, the Bill does two things. First, it sweeps away a mass of ancient legislation dating back to 1811 and substitutes new thinking, new ideas and a completely new approach to mental health. It is very difficult for the public to understand exactly what that new approach is. I confess that, until very recently, I had very little idea myself of what modern methods of treatment and modern drugs can do for mental illness. It is now recognised that mental pain is very largely a cause of mental disease. Mental pain can be as real as the pain of childbirth or the pain of appendicitis.
When a woman is to have a baby, she consults her doctor. The doctor calls in the specialist and, ultimately, without formality, the woman goes to a nursing home, has her baby, returns home and is happy. If a person is suffering from appendicitis, he consults his doctor, he goes into the nursing home without formality, has the pain removed, and goes home happy. Up to now, however, if a person has been suffering mental anguish as real as any physical pain he has either had to be certified and taken away or he has had to sign a formal document to say that he is mad and wants to be detained.
That is old-fashioned thinking. It is what we have had for the last hundred years. The position is now completely different, and the Bill asks that that person should be in the same position as anyone suffering from any physical illness. As my right hon. Friend has said, the kernel of the Bill is in Clause 23, which provides that any person in need of medical treatment for mental disease may be treated in a hospital or a nursing home without any formality whatever. That is the whole spirit of the Bill. We should all support it and make sure, too, that the public understand the position.
Perhaps I can best illustrate my point by telling the House what is happening at Kingseat Hospital in my constituency. It has 750 beds and, although it may seem incredible, 550 people go into it each year and almost as many come out of it cured. That is a tremendous proportion of success. I had no idea of the magnitude of the success in such hospitals until I looked into the facts relating to this one.
I should like to give an example. A woman had been looking after her old mother for many years. The mother was querulous and difficult. The girl had a tremendous sense of duty and, instead of looking after her own interests and going out with boys and girls of her own generation, she looked after her mother. If she felt inclined to go out, she would ask her mother if she could do so, and the mother would say, in the difficult way that some old people do, "Of course you can go out. I won't really have a heart attack while you are out of the house."
Many a time, the wretched girl thought in her inmost mind that it would be a good thing if her mother died. When the old lady died from purely natural causes—heart failure—the girl got into a panic. She suffered unbearable anguish and felt that the only way to atone for her wicked thoughts was to commit suicide. She tried several times to commit suicide and had ultimately to be certified. By means of psychiatric treatment and modern drugs she was cured in a very short time and once more given a proper sense of perspective. All this happened many years ago. That woman now has a husband and a family and is a useful and happy citizen because of her treatment but the House must remember that she was a certified patient.
Last week, I saw a boy who had committed a petty misdemeanour. That had prayed on his mind so much that he was under the delusion that he was dead and in hell, and he suffered all the agonies of hell. Ten days after his admission, that boy found it almost impossible to believe that he had been under that delusion. In a week or two he will be back at work, a perfectly useful citizen. If the success at Kingseat Hospital is multiplied by that achieved in all the specialist hospitals, the value of the work will be seen to be beyond estimation.
The unfortunate fact is that both the woman and the boy to whom I have just referred were certified cases. There is no doubt that a hundred years ago they would have been in padded cells, and would not have been cured. Similar patients are being treated and cured but have to undergo all the indignity of either certification or the signing of an admission that they are mad and want to be detained. The Bill seeks to sweep all that away. I beg the House to give it an unopposed Second Reading and to leave discussion of the administrative details until later.
Finally, I should like to pay a tribute to the doctors and nurses who are making all this possible. I am sorry to say that they are at present the poor relations of their profession, and only the education of the public will end that. In Kingseat Hospital, the physician superintendent, Dr. Stewart, is carrying on work started by his father, and he has produced this tremendous success.
The matron, Miss Cooper, is a devoted and dedicated woman. As an attractive girl of 16 or 17 years of age she trained as a secretary and discovered, quite by accident, how mental cases were treated. She was quite certain that she knew how to treat them, and had the patience, the skill and the devotion to give up everything for this work. She is now running that hospital, handling a devoted staff, and producing these great results. It is proper that I should say that so that the public should know the sort of thing that goes on. The public and we as their representatives should give the doctors and nurses all the support possible in their work. I ask the House, I implore the House, to give the Bill an undivided Second Reading.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: It is my very pleasant duty to congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) on getting over his first hurdle so admirably. He spoke in apologetic terms about his cold: I should like to hear his voice when he has not got a cold—it would compete with some on this side, very nearly. He showed every sign of being an asset to his party, provided he does not obey the Whips too rigidly. If he takes part in the Standing Committee proceedings irrespective of what his Whips say, we on this side will be all the happier. We look forward very much to seeing and hearing him in Committee and in the House on future occasions.
The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland was not making his maiden speech, but his speech made quite a change. It was extremely conciliatory and augured well for the Committee stage. Speaking for myself, I am not at all sure that I relish the kind of atmosphere we shall probably get in Committee—I would much prefer the other atmosphere—but I suppose that we shall have to try to accommodate ourselves to it. It will depend a great deal on the right hon. Gentleman's attitude. His words are very often different from his deeds. We shall have to see whether his performance in Committee matches his words.
There is nothing more heartbreaking than to go into a home where one of the inhabitants is either mentally deficient or mentally ill. I had that very distressing

experience in Thornton during the last General Election. I went to a house where I saw a boy of 15 years. To look at him, one would have thought there was nothing wrong with him. He appeared to have great potentialities, but before I had been in that home very long his mother broke down completely.
The facts were that the boy was mentally retarded and one could see the parents shrinking away from an admission of what, I fear, is often the truth. The mother had tried to get the boy into a home because, as one of the reports rightly stated, one of the damnable features is the effect that this kind of thing has on the home environment and on the happiness of the family. The family was being almost destroyed by the very presence of the child. The mother deeply loved her child, as mothers invariably do in these circumstances. I did my level best to get the child taken away for his own good and for that of the parents, but I very much regret that because of the lack of accommodation there is no immediate prospect of the child getting out of that home. This is the extremely human issue that we must face.
Viewed in that context, the Bill is no more than a milestone on a very long road. I hope that we do not approach the problem from the viewpoint of complacency, that this is an administrative Measure dealing with the administrative problems and that the rest can be left to the initiative and imagination of local authorities. When it comes down to hard facts, it is money and resources that will be needed if we are to make any impact on the problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) was quite right in saying that the inauguration of the National Health Service has played a tremendous part in bringing us to this stage. Had we not had the National Health Service, I doubt very much whether we would have had this legislation today. It is made possible only through the resources that have been made available and by the more humanitarian and enlightened approach of the community to this problem, coupled with the enormous increase in medical knowledge and, not least, the part played by the B.B.C., the television services and


the Press in bringing to the public a more acute awareness of the problem in our midst.
Far too often in the past, we have found difficulty in finding time in the House of Commons to provide for minorities. When faced with a minority problem where not many votes are to be obtained—we are all vote-conscious—it is extremely difficult to get the House to focus its attention on a group which is not voluble and which has no pressure group to bring its problem to the House. We tend to sweep it under the carpet and to forget about it. One of the tests of our civilisation is the way that we bring the problems of minorities before the House. To that extent, today's Bill is an important landmark.
We congratulate ourselves on what has happened in the past, and I have seen it claimed that the record of Scotland in mental health over recent years—indeed, over the generations—compares favourably with the record of any other country. I am in no position to contradict that, but it is no ground for complacency. If we are the best, it does not say much for the others.
When I read some of the remarks of the Sub-Committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee in the Mental Deficiency (Scotland) Report for 1957, there is certainly no room for sitting back and thinking that all is well. All is far from well. One could quote paragraph after paragraph in that Report to show what I regard as a damning indictment of the neglect to which this service has been subjected, particularly in the years between the wars. In the 'twenties and the 'thirties, there was very little new building, with the result, as the Report makes clear, that after the war, with the scarcity of resources, there was an extremely difficult task to make up the leeway and to make any advance. Nevertheless, advance was made, perhaps not very dramatically, but it was an advance, not only in physical material provision, but in the attitude of the public.
Although my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North said that a stigma still attaches to mental deficiency and mental illness, there has been a good deal of progress in the last several years. One of the results of this has been, so the Secretary of State said, that four

out of every five patients now enter mental institutions voluntarily. This compares with a figure of about 32 per cent. just before the war. This is a measure of the improved education of the public. Nevertheless, having said that, there is a great deal more yet to be done.
The educational process must go on, not least among local authorities. The Bill emphasises the increasing part that must be played by local authorities and voluntary organisations, most of whose members are laymen, all depending upon the education that they receive in this sphere from the experts. That is why we must give the local authorities every encouragement and the wherewithal to get on with what so many of them desire to do. It is no good voicing ardent aspirations unless we give them the means of carrying them out. This will be a practical point that we are bound to meet in Committee.
One realises, as my hon. Friend said, that there comes a point when we must decide whether certain activities of local authorities shall be mandatory or permissive. It is a difficult question to decide. I see the force of the arguments that were used by one of the committees that because resources vary so much from one authority to another, discretion should be allowed to the Secretary of State. On the other hand, there is a growing desire for uniformity of standards—of high standards. Precisely because of that, the Government are under an obligation to underpin and support the resources of those authorities which are not sufficiently wealthy to do themselves with their own resources what they would like to do.
We must recognise—we might as well be blunt—that there are some authorities with the resources but unwilling to carry out their duties as long as they are permissive. It is these laggard authorities whom we must get behind and say, "You are failing the community. If you fail them, we will step in and compel you to do what is your duty."
If I might refer further to what my hon. Friend said about the lack of psychiatric social workers and people of that description, clinical psychologists and so on, I should like to know what plans the Government have in mind for increasing the number of trained personnel in these fields. I hope the Joint Under-Secretary of State will not seek


refuge in the argument that this lies outside the ambit of the Bill, that it is more or less a legal administrative instrument and that the rest is dealt with within the terms of the National Health Service. I hope that he will give us some ground for hoping that we shall not fail because of lack of resources, either financial or personnel.
I should also be very glad if he would give us some information on the question of old people now being admitted into mental hospitals. I do not know what the latest figures are, but certainly the last few years have given us grounds for nothing but alarm at the number of old people going into mental hospitals. I have figures here for 1956, which I am certain will be improved upon now.

Mr. William Ross: They are worse.

Mr. Hamilton: We shall be interested to hear from the hon. Gentleman at the end of the debate. In 1956, of the 2,000 patients who went into mental hospitals, 70 per cent. were over 65. The reason for that is precisely the inadequate provision of other accommodation for them. This again pinpoints the need for additional resources to be provided. I had intended to quote the paragraphs in the Report of this Mental Deficiency Sub-Committee, but it is there for everybody to see. It is the equivalent of the Devlin Commission's Report, and I hope that the Government will not treat it with the scant respect with which they treated the Devlin Report on Nyasaland.
In the House last week, we had a startling figure given to us of the money that we have given to private industry and agriculture between 1951 and 1959. A sum of £2,311 million has been given in the last eight years in the form of outright subsidy or grants to private enterprise in this country, and we are now discussing a Bill which will fail or succeed on the amount of money that we devote to this field. One could spend a few minutes on the sums of money which we have granted in this Parliament to, as I think, much less worthy causes than we are now discussing.
If the Government will give us some hope that the resources will be available, we can go into the Committee stage in the atmosphere which the Secretary of State indicated. It may be that if he

can give us that assurance, we will have a happy time in the Committee. Nobody will be happier than I to have that assurance, but if we do not get it, I can adapt myself to the other conditions just as well. I give the Bill a qualified welcome. At the moment, it is pretty much of a blank cheque, and we want to know how it is to be filled in before we give it our wholehearted support.

5.45 p.m.

Sir James Henderson-Stewart: I thought the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) was also going to make a maiden speech, as he began by cooing like a dove; but he proceeded to make a most penetrating, eloquent and in parts moving speech, and I myself was very much impressed by it. I find myself in large part in agreement with what he has been saying, as indeed I was with the speech made by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison).
On an occasion like this, most of us, I imagine, inwardly have the same desires and feelings. I think it is probably true that this is an infinitely better Bill than the one introduced for England and Wales some time ago. Most people who are knowledgable on this matter seem to take that view. If that be true, the credit is due to our own Scottish people—the Committees which drew up these two Reports, the Department of Health, our own officers and the Board of Control. All these are our own Scottish people who have devoted a great deal of pains and trouble to this work, and who deserve credit. I think the Government will also be entitled to some share of credit because they had to put all this into legislative form.
I do not think that we should forget that the Royal Commission produced a Report which our Scottish Committee examined with great sympathy, and many parts of which it found agreeable. In fact, much of what is found in these two Reports is drawn from the Royal Commission, and we might as well recognise that and pay our tribute to that body too.
There are two main topics that I have in mind. As the hon. Member for Fife, West has said, this is one of those matters which touch people's hearts. I suppose that what we are discussing tonight is the oldest and perhaps the


saddest of all the ailments that affect mankind, and it is natural, therefore, that as time goes on we should be making progress, changing our attitudes and so on. That is what we have to do here.
The first change that we seem to be making is in the alteration of the name of the Board of Control, which is now to be known as the Mental Welfare Board. I think that is wise, because, as the hon. Lady said, there was a slight dual interest in this matter, and it is better that this newly-constructed body should concentrate its attention upon the care of the actual patients rather than upon broader administrative matters. Therefore, I am glad that we have made this change, which I think will be very much to the good.
If I may turn to another matter, at the one end of the scale of the mentally disturbed we have these unfortunate people, who are a danger not only to themselves but to the public at large. These people have to be locked up—we know that—and locked up in conditions of supreme security. We have to recognise that that has to be done, because the public need that protection. The experience we have had in the last two or three years of men escaping from these institutions in England, with the furore that resulted and the anxiety created in the locality, is such that the Government simply have to take note of it. Therefore, I hope that these new State hospitals, as they are to be called, will be places of real security, so that, while everything proper is done for the inmates, the interests of people outside will always remain one of the major concerns of the Government.
I am, however, concerned principally about Part II of the Bill. Unless we can make Part II work, unless we can ensure that local authorities in all their departments work closely together in an integrated fashion and with enthusiasm, we shall not make a success of the Bill at all. The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North, was critical, naturally—I do not object—of the proposal to make a change in the integration of functions of the health and education departments of our local authorities. Is she right about that? She has, I know, great experience, but our own Scottish Committee looked into the matter and came to the conclusion that there was a

lack of integration among our Scottish departments and it was not altogether good that they should all be separate.
There is, I think, a paragraph on page 11 of the Second Dunlop Report on Mental Health Legislation in Scotland which brings out that very point. While I do not wish to dogmatise, I believe that there is a case for the view expressed by the Committee that there should be closer integration, even if it means abandoning some of the old associations with this or that committee. I have an open mind about it.
The hon. Lady referred also to the question whether there should be duties or powers laid upon local authorities. She quoted the Report of the Royal Commission which came down fairly solidly on the side of duties. Our Scottish Committee did not do that. If we are to pay any attention to the advice of our advisers, we must note that the Dunlop Committee, admittedly after some hesitation but nevertheless finally, came down on the side of saying that it would be better on the whole if local authorities were given powers only, it being understood that the Secretary of State would always be behind to impose duties whenever be thought it right.
Again, I invite the hon. Lady to consider whether that may be a better answer than the advice which she ventured to give to the House. I understand very well what the hon. Member for Fife, West meant when he spoke about the various nature of local authorities, at different stages of advance, and so on. Local authorities are not all the same. What they seek to do is not the same. To regard them all as one and the same and equal is not, in my view, practicable. There is, therefore, something to be said for the proposal in the Bill to leave these matters as powers rather than duties.
I come now to consider the position of old people. It is really heartbreaking to go into one of the great mental hospitals, such as the one we have in Fife, and see there the scores and scores of old people, some of whom have been in for years, not because they are all mentally defective so much as because they have nowhere else to go. I am told that in the Fife Mental Hospital 40 per cent. of the inmates are old people like that. I know that the figure


may not be so high everywhere, but that is the information I have in respect of Fife.
It cannot be right that the mental hospital should be the only place where that kind of old man or old woman can go. I am, therefore, strongly of the view that we must do what the Committee itself recognised as necessary, namely, build up what are called hostels for old people outside mental institutions. This is, of course, another geriatric problem. I do not know whether we in Fife are more troubled about it than the authorities in other places, but as the hon. Member for Fife, West and I know full well, the problem of caring for elderly people in that part of Scotland is a source of constant anxiety to us. I would go a long way to urge the Government not only to impose duties, but to give local authorities the funds to make an exceptional advance in the matter.
During the election campaign, we were all confronted with the problem of the old-age pension. I suppose that most of us would have been only too glad to be able to say, "Yes, we will double it". Unfortunately, we could not. But here is something which all parties can agree about. Here is something which the House would be unanimous about. Let this be our contribution towards meeting the needs of the old people. Let us give them a chance to spend the last days of their lives in reasonable comfort outside mental homes. That is the simple plea I make.
I welcome the Bill and I hope to be able in Committee to play my part in improving it, particularly in Part II which seems to me to hold out the greatest hope.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Millan: The Secretary of State, in introducing the Bill, said that it was largely a piece of codifying legislation. Anyone who has tried to pick his way through the existing legislation on mental health will not disagree about the need to introduce a Measure to make the present situation a good deal clearer than it is.
Many of the matters to which the right hon. Gentleman referred and many of the provisions of the Bill itself are extremely important from the point of view of civil liberty. In particular, there

is the procedure for certification and the procedure for discharge. It seems to me that in that part of the Bill, at least, we have a system of procedure which, in the view of most people, will provide a great deal of protection for the patient, the position of relatives, guardians and so forth, and also from the point of view of the community itself. There may be certain defects in the provisions which deal with certification, but I imagine that the House as a whole will accept the spirit in which that part of the Bill has been drafted and, if minor Amendments are required to improve it, they will, no doubt, be readily made in Committee.
Apart from those provisions to which I have just referred, the great importance of which we all appreciate, there are certain other provisions which some of us regard as of even greater importance. In paragraph 2 of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, it is said:
The Bill does not involve any substantial new net charges upon central or local funds".
This indicates something which certain hon. Members on this side, at least, are disturbed about and, judging from what the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) said, it disturbs some hon. Members opposite also.
The implication of that paragraph in the Memorandum is that the general arrangements for dealing with mental illness in Scotland are quite satisfactory at this time. We on this side of the House, I think, would take objection to that suggestion. As a matter of fact, reading the various Reports of the Scottish Health Services Council and other bodies which have considered the matter during the last few years, no one could come to the conclusion that the general facilities for dealing with mental illness and deficiency in Scotland are anything like adequate.
We are, therefore, concerned lest Clause 7 of the Bill should give a wide range of powers to local authorities without making the exercise of those powers mandatory. There may be certain administrative difficulties—we all recognise that—in making the powers mandatory, since local authorities are of different sizes and have different resources; but it is very important that the powers which are laid down by Clause 7 should be exercised to the full. In view of the history of the treatment of mental health in Scotland during the last twenty or


thirty years, I do not believe that many people will be satisfied with a Clause which gives permissive powers which are to become mandatory only at the direction of the Secretary of State. Therefore, we shall want to strengthen the Clause to ensure that, despite the administrative difficulties, all concerned play their parts to the fullest possible extent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton), mentioned a matter which I think is of very considerable importance, namely, the shortage of accommodation for mental defectives in Scotland. The Scottish Health Services Council Sub-Committee which reported on Mental Deficiency in Scotland in 1957 had something to say about this matter. It estimated that probably there were about 40,000 defectives in Scotland. One would hope that that is an exaggeration, but that estimate was based on the best evidence available to the Sub-Committee at that time. The total number of certified mental defectives was only 7,853, but it was estimated that there was a shortage of accommodation for at least 5,000 mental defectives.
It is very important that there should be adequate accommodation for mental defectives. It is not by any means true that every mental defective requires institutional care, but it is important that those who require it should have it available to them. It is important From the point of view of the patient himself and it is in the interests of the community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West said, it is also Important from the point of view of the patient's family. Although the question of accommodation is not directly relevant to the Bill in that it is a National Health Service responsibility, it is nevertheless to be hoped that the Minister who winds up the debate for the Government will be able to set our minds at rest to some extent about the shortage of accommodation.
Apart from the question of accommodation, directly related to the matter is the question of discharge. I must join in the congratulations to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) on his maiden speech. He mentioned the remarkable success of many mental hospitals with the mentally ill. Many, perhaps the majority, of mentally ill patients are short-term

patients, but that is by no means true of mental defectives who are certified and sent to mental deficiency institutions.
There is what is to me an appalling paragraph in the Report to which I have already referred, paragraph 30, which deals with discharge from mental deficiency institutions: It reads:
The discharge rate (including discharge on licence) varies greatly between different institutions and this cannot be accounted for solely by differences in the types and grades of the inmates. In three large institutions, each dealing with similar types of defectives, the proportions of patients on licence on a given date were 11 per cent., 3 per cent., and 1½7 per cent.; for all institutions the percentage on licence varies from 19 per cent. to 1 per cent.
It seems to me that there is something very wrong if that is the position.
This is a matter of supreme importance from the point of view of the community. One of the great difficulties which we have encountered in getting a sane attitude towards mental illness is the prejudice among people that there is a permanency about mental illness and deficiency. That is the major factor which contributes to the sense of hopelessness which many people feel who find themselves confronted with it in their family. It is important—it is being increasingly realised—that people should know that mental illness very often is of short-term duration. I think that it is equally important that people should know that mental deficiency can be treated to some extent and that it is possible to ameliorate the condition at least to the extent that many people suffering from mental deficiency and needing institutional care can be brought back into the ordinary life of the community within perhaps a comparatively short time, or, in difficult cases, after a longer period. The prospect of some sort of amelioration of their condition is often good.
If some mental deficiency institutions in Scotland are able to discharge a comparatively large proportion of their patients after a period of care and treatment and others are not able to do so, it seems to me that a good deal of investigation is required, and we should ensure that institutions which are falling behind are brought up to the standards of the rest.
I should like to mention another point in connection with discharge from mental deficiency institutions. It also applies to


the discharge of the mentally ill. I hope that we might hear something on this matter from the Minister who replies to the debate this evening. One of the things which is most needed to make the rate of discharge as high as possible is an intermediary stage between the patient being in hospital and his return to the community. The Second Report of the Committee of the Scottish Health Services Council on Mental Health Legislation in 1959 recommended that powers should be granted to regional hospital boards for the establishment of hostels as an intermediary step between the hospital and the return of the patient to the community.
There is no specific mention of this in the Bill. Perhaps this is excusable, but I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can tell us whether the powers granted to local authorities under Clause 7 are sufficiently wide to enable them to build hostels for the treatment of discharged mentally ill and mentally defective patients. I hope that the powers are wide enough. If they are, that will bring us to the question of the need to make the powers mandatory, and also, as has been said, it will bring us to the question of the Government having to face the fact that, before the mentally ill in Scotland can be properly treated, we shall have to spend a good deal more money.
I should like to turn to a matter about which I am in some doubt and which probably causes confusion among other people, namely, the treatment of mentally defective children of school age, between 5 and 16. It was recommended in the Second Report of the Committee of the Scottish Health Services Council that there should be some transfer of responsibility from local education authorities to local health authorities. Where, under existing legislation, an education authority had been operating occupational centres, these centres should be transferred to the jurisdiction of local health authorities.
I naturally expected, and I think that there was a general expectation, that the Mental Health Bill would provide for that transfer of responsibility. I may have misread the Clauses dealing with this matter, but, so far as I can see, the Bill does not change the position

with regard to the question of responsibility. I have the impression that my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and the hon. Member for Fife, East implied that there had been some transfer of responsibility. If it is not proposed that there should be a transfer of responsibility, I am glad to say that I agree, and I think that that is not only the opinion, naturally, of education authorities but the opinion of some of the people most directly concerned, particularly the Association of Parents of Mentally Handicapped Children. I will be very pleased to hear that no change is contemplated in the Bill.
That represents a victory to those who feel that the education authorities are the right people to deal with mentally deficient children from the age of 5 to 16 years, except in the special case of those who are neither educable nor trainable because of associated physical handicaps or because they are too seriously affected mentally or for some other reason.
If it is true that, with that exception, education authorities are still to be responsible for the training and education of mentally defective children from the age of 5 to 16, it is perhaps opportune to put in a plea for the treatment of children beyond the age of 16 years. It is obvious that mentally defective children at 16, by definition, have a mental age considerably lower than that, and if it is a good thing that ordinary children should have education at least up to the age of 16 it is obviously absolutely essential that if mentally defective children are to be trained reasonably at all they should have training beyond the age of 16.
The figures for occupation centres up to the age of 16 are bad enough, but the figures for training centres beyond that age are absolutely disgraceful. There are at the moment 48 junior centres, apart from special schools, with almost 1,400 children attending them in Scotland. The number of senior centres for those over 16 is only 14 and the number in attendance is only 339. This is a situation which all hon. Members must find quite unsatisfactory. I hope that every encouragement will be given to local authorities to get on with this work, not only with the junior education centres but particularly with the senior


centres, and also industrial training centres, because I do not think that there is even one such industrial centre in Scotland at present.
These are some of the reasons, incidentally, why we feel that Clause 7 should be strengthened. No provision at all is made for the high-grade mental defectives who, with a good deal of training, might be able to find some kind of perhaps restricted employment in various occupations. A great amount of work still remains to be done and, whatever its virtues, the Bill needs strengthening in many respects. I hope that when in Committee we on this side of the House come to move Amendments which will have that effect, we shall have co-operation from the Government.

6.12 p.m.

Sir Thomas Moore: This problem of mental ill-health has always seemed to me one of the most difficult questions that face our doctors and our social workers. What is it? Where did it spring from? Why are there so many imprecise forms of it? These are some of the questions. For instance, I have a constituent who is no longer young but who was a young man when he was sent to Broadmoor twenty years ago. He writes perfectly normal and intelligent letters. He discusses topical matters with interest and alertness. He is pleasant in his manner and almost mild and apparently he thinks coherently. Yet successive Home Secretaries, including the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), conscientious, humane men, have refused time after time to allow that man to be released. Each in turn, at my request, has had the man independently examined by doctors and psychiatrists and, in turn, the result has been the same. He has not been allowed out of Broadmoor.
I have wondered at times whether there was something deficient in the treatment of these patients or whether the nurses were of the right type. Fairly recently I have had some encouragement in that view from an experience in my constituency. There is a mental home there which, according to time-honoured custom, is one of the places which I visit during a General Election campaign. Up to fairly recently I was allowed to speak only to the nurses. It seemed that the other inmates, perhaps, would not fully appreciate the wisdom of my remarks.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: The hon. Member should not be too modest.

Sir T. Moore: The other inmates seemed to me to be in some degree segregated. I am speaking, of course, of a few years ago and not of the last General Election. The place was then called an asylum. A stigma is attached to anyone who has been in an asylum and to anyone who has been certified, as we all know, but it has always seemed to me a great pity that such a kindly word as "asylum" should suffer such a nasty reputation as it now has through being associated with mental defectives.
All this is very different today. There is a new superintendent in that place and it bears a new name. It is now called a "home". Not only have these changes taken place, but there is something far more important in that there has been an entire change of atmosphere, which is beyond description. One receives a happy carefree impression not only from seeing the attractive, well laid out grounds but from seeing the expressions on the patients' faces. Visitors are welcome and a free mixing of patients, nurses and visitors seems to be the order of the day. It is now a pleasant place to visit whereas before it was rather forbidding.
These are some of the reasons why I welcome the Bill. I believe that it will do a great deal to expand, develop and perpetuate this change which has been sc marked in the one mental home of which I have been personally aware. It was George Bernard Shaw who first publicly familiarised the British people with a word with which we were perfectly familiar privately and it is in order not to risk the displeasure of the Chair that I quote Bernard Shaw in applying that word as an adjective before "good" to describe this Bill.
The Bill contains three or four outstanding Clauses which I think will appeal to the public. Clauses 24 and 27 control the admission of a person to a mental home and Clause 39 contains controls over detention. We have had many cases in the last few years of men and women who have spent almost all the best years of their lives in such institutions as these when they were apparently perfectly normal people. We must,


therefore, ensure that there are—and indeed there are—definite ordinances in the Bill which make it perfectly clear that the greatest care will be taken before a person is either admitted to a home or detained there. There is one Clause which is especially important because it provides adequate machinery for ensuring the discharge, when cured, of people previously mentally defective.
The Bill is full of safeguards which within my recollection have not existed previously. For example, I welcome the right of appeal to the sheriff. This will give the public more confidence in the administration of the Bill when it becomes an Act than almost anything else.
There is the establishment of the Mental Welfare Board to take the place of the Control Board. This is also a step in the right direction because of the psychological effect of the word "control" compared with the term "mental welfare". The Board will have an important function to carry out, and much will depend on the quality and character of its members. Of course, the Secretary of State for Scotland and his assistants are fully aware of those necessary factors. Clause 95 deals with ill treatment or neglect, although none of us would like to think that this would take place in any of our mental homes. Clauses 96 and 97 are endeavours to safeguard the sexual health of patients.
For all those reasons, I welcome the Bill. It is a great step forward along a most difficult path, and I hope it will have a non-turbulent career during the Committee stage, although I gather that there are some threats to the contrary.

6.22 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart: I join with my hon. Friends on this side of the House in welcoming the Bill simply because it represents an up-to-date concept of mental health, of the treatment of mental ill-health, and particularly because it represents a modern idea of individual liberty. Whatever one's state of mind may be, the Bill represents the fact that whether an individual be mentally fit or ill, whether he be highly intelligent of mentally defective, he has the same rights as other citizens to the protection of society. This is one of its Mat important aspects.
I shall direct my attention to Part II, which interests many of us. This part of the Bill relates to the functions and powers of mental authorities. It is true to say, I think, that the new powers given by the Bill are small. There is the power to provide residential accommodation, which is important, and there is also the power to ascertain mental deficiency among children under the age of 5 in categories hitherto not covered. There are other powers, but, by and large, I think it is true to say that most of the necessary powers for a local authority to give community care to the mentally ill and the mentally defective in its areas already exist under present legislation.
For instance, if we take the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, we find that a wide range of powers are given there for the care of the mentally disordered in the community. There are powers to make domiciliary visits and to take after-care measures in order to look after those discharged from mental institutions, mental hospitals and so on. There are powers for advising and supervising the mentally disordered in their own homes, whether they be mentally deficient or mentally ill. There are powers for the provision of diagnostic and advisory clinics. There are powers for setting up a mental health committee or sub-committee, and there are powers for the appointment of welfare workers to carry out all the domiciliary duties for which powers already exist. There is the power for an education authority to provide child guidance, and it is not purely for the purpose of education but also for the purpose of diagnosing, advising and treating those children in the community who are mentally or emotionally disordered, thus laying a foundation for the prevention of mental illness.
What is happening with these existing powers? When we look at the situation as we find it today there is a clear indication that three things have been occurring in the years since the end of the war. Let us limit ourselves to those years in which public knowledge and awareness of mental health and mental illness, and the way it should be treated, has been progressing rapidly on all fronts.
We find that not enough money has been spent on providing the things for which powers exist already under the


National Health Service Act. We find that not enough attention has been paid to staffing the services which are to administer the existing duties. I am glad that the Secretary of State for Scotland has come into the Chamber because I am going to say something to him, through you, of course, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to say that we have seen in the last fifteen years, and over the last ten years particularly, a failure on the part of the Scottish Office and the Government sufficiently to impress upon local authorities their obligations and the need for them to do a great deal more than they have been doing.
I now turn in detail to one or two of the measures I have mentioned. It seems to me logical and natural that only where there is a mental health committee or sub-committee appointed within a local authority shall we get the job of community care carried out really effectively. We shall then get the people who are interested in carrying out the task. We shall gather together people with knowledge and experience and so have a better chance of doing the job well. Although powers exist already for this to be done, what do we find when we look at the figures? We find that out of 143 county councils and county boroughs in England and Wales 119 have appointed mental health committees or sub-committees, but that out of 49 county councils and large burghs in Scotland only one has so far appointed a special committee to deal with mental health.
This measure of appointing a special mental health committee was recommended as long ago as 1946 by the Russell Committee, which, it would seem, envisaged a composite committee composed of the interests of welfare, health and education. There are various ways in which its recommendation could have been carried out, but there has been far too little exhortation coming from the Secretary of State to induce local authorities to appreciate their responsibilities to do this work.
Again, let us look at diagnostic clinics, for which powers already exist. The sub-committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee stated in its Report in 1947 that a proper system of mental deficiency clinics, which would diagnose and advise and give some supervision, would be a most effective method of

reducing the numbers of mental defectives confined to institutions. That would be a tremendous help in keeping the mentally disordered in the community, and, socially desirable as that is, it is also economically desirable, because the more we can cut down the cost of providing residential accommodation, the more money we shall have to spare for doing many other necessary things.
What did the sub-committee say? It criticised the delay in organising and developing. What advice has been coming from the Scottish Office within the last few years to local authorities on this question? Have the Government endeavoured to impress on local authorities what they can do to improve conditions to meet the modern requirements of a good mental health service?
The Russell Committee, reporting in 1946, said that it had considered mental deficiency clinics, and recommended not only that they should exist but that they should exist on a broad basis, and that after-care and rehabilitation should be carried out through them with the assistance of psychiatric social workers.
I now turn to another less directly connected, but infinitely important, aspect—child guidance clinics. Those which exist and which are the responsibility of regional hospital boards are doing a wonderful job. There is a child guidance clinic attached to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow. It is primarily a research clinic. There is the Nôtre Dame Clinic in Glasgow, and also a clinic in Edinburgh. One can find many child guidance clinics attached to regional hospital boards, but they cannot pretend even to begin to meet the needs of the community.
Too little has been done by local education authorities to provide child guidance clinics. We may find local education authorities which have set up child guidance clinics. They may seem to be working very well, but when one looks into them one finds that there is no consultant psychiatrist and no psychiatric social worker attached to the staff. The clinic consists largely of educational psychologists who are being used to further the educational requirements of the community rather than give attention to the mental health aspect of a child's upbringing. When a child of five, six or


seven starts developing an emotional disturbance to a degree that makes his mother go to the doctor to ask for advice, it may be that there is a child whose educational progress will be retarded by his emotional difficulties, and to that extent the educational psychologist at the child guidance clinic is justified. It must be realised, however, and this is much more important, that here there is an incipient mentally ill child and the provision on an adequate scale of properly staffed child guidance clinics throughout Scotland would be the finest and most positive single measure that one could take actively and positively to promote mental health in the community. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will remedy some of the inadequacies of the Department of Health for Scotland and exhort local authorities to do what I am suggesting.
There are other aspects of community care. Apart from the mental defectives which have been mentioned, we know that in 1957 over 9,000 mentally disordered people were discharged from hospital. Some of them had recovered, but not all of them. Some of them had partially recovered. Some of them had made very little progress. The majority had done extremely well and made rapid progress to a good state of health, but even they needed care. They needed after-care. They needed supervision. Let us think of this in human terms. They needed to be put into the right job with the right kind of employer. They needed a family who understood their problems. They needed integration into community life again. A great deal needed to be done by way of domiciliary care even for those patients who had made remarkable progress while they were in hospital. For the others who had made either partial progress or very little progress there was a need for after-care, and the provision of advice at home was even more necessary.
Old people are in another category. We have to recognise that, as we develop our physical health services in such a way that we extend life, we are up against the problem that while an old person may be fit physically he may be far from fit mentally.
I know of an old lady who at the moment is living with a family. She

is living with her daughter, her daughter's husband and their three children. She is mentally confused. She has reached the stage with which many of us are familiar, perhaps with members of our own family, that she dare not be left alone. One does not know what she might do. She might do something with the electricity plug or the gas tap, or with matches. She might do almost anything. She might walk out of the house and try and get on a bus. We know the problem that exists for that family.
That is typical of that kind of mental illness and disorder. It is not an individual problem but a family one. The worst aspect of the case is not the difficulties of the old lady herself but the difficulties that she is imposing on the young children in that family who cannot understand. As a result a very difficult atmosphere has been created. The family is trying to face the need for this old lady to go into a residential home. They do not like the idea of that happening. None of us likes the idea of it, but if there existed an occupation centre provided by the local authority to which this old lady could go during part of the day, many of the problems of that family would be solved and they could cope with the problem during the remainder of the day.
Psychoneurosis is known to all general practitioners in our modern communities. These cases legitimately qualify for the care and advice of the skilled psychiatric social worker. We also have the mentally defective people who are in these hospitals. What is happening about all these people in our society in Scotland today?
The sub-committee on mental deficiency said in 1957 that it found little evidence that these obligations about after-care were being fulfilled. Is that surprising? Can they be adequately fulfilled under the new Bill? Unless the Government are prepared to say that money will be devoted to training the workers who are needed, that money will be spent on providing the buildings which are needed and that local authorities will be given the assistance that they must have if they are to play their part in carrying out the powers given to them under the Bill and under previous legislation, no progress will be made.
Let me now consider the staffing position. When one looks either at the staffing position or at the finance, or at whatever aspect one likes, one finds that there are two kinds of local authorities. There are the local authorities who have good intentions and want to do their best to provide a good mental service in the community, but who are limited by lack of finance and staff. The other group consists of authorities in whose areas, unfortunately, one finds a state of primitive neglect of mental health. In those areas one can say that a state of bedlam exists for dealing with mental health.
There is no other aspect of medicine in which there is such a gap between knowledge and practice as there is in mental health. It is a gap which can be filled only if the Government are prepared to turn their attention to the need for fully trained staff to carry out the tasks given by the Bill to local authorities.
I come now to mental health workers and mental health medical officers. I understand that there are only two senior medical officers in Scotland engaged wholly in mental health with the highest salaries and prospects of promotion that those higher appointments involve. That is not enough if we are taking mental health seriously.
Much information has arisen from the discoveries of the Younghusband Committee about social workers; some of it related to Scotland. One of the facts which emerges from the Younghusband Report is that although there are said to be 118 welfare and mental welfare officers in the Scottish counties, when that figure is studied in detail it is found that 70 of them are also district clerks. Those of us who know how our district councils work know that if a district clerk is doing his work properly he has no time to be a mental welfare officer as well.
That is the kind of thing which makes a mockery of the whole position of our mental health services in Scotland. Taking those workers who are fully engaged in the mental health services, welfare workers of one kind or another, whether fully qualified or not, the Younghusband Report shows that those people of whom we are so desperately short are wasting a great deal of their time doing work which could be done by clerks, 42 per

cent. of their time being taken up by writing reports and letters, and that they have no cars for travelling and that we are, in fact, employing only half the number Which we say we are employing because half of their time is used not on mental welfare work but on unnecessary clerical work in the background.
The most disturbing fact of all is the position about psychiatric social workers. I am trained in sociology and, perhaps because of that, I should be one of the first to realise that I should never venture to undertake any social or mental case work without the two years' mental health training that a psychiatric social worker has. I remember that the Secretary of State said that this was a devoted army of workers. It is a devoted army, but this is the one subject above all others in which devotion cannot be substituted for skill, technique and training. One must know precisely what one is doing when one is dealing with an individual and with a family with an elaborate, complicated background of mental ill-health. One cannot afford to make mistakes.
One of the most dangerous signs at the moment—and I beg the right hon. Gentleman to make certain that this will not be allowed to happen and to assure me that it is not to happen—is that in order to make an effort to implement some of the new powers in the Bill, local authorities will gather together people without adequate training in order that they can say that they have people doing the job. That would be a dreadful thing and would do irreparable harm for the future.
I notice from a reply which I received today from the Secretary of State that five psychiatric social workers are now employed in Scotland. I understand that not all the five are fully qualified and trained psychiatric social workers. According to the Younghusband Report, a year or so ago there were only two psychiatric social workers in Scotland employed by local authorities on community care work. I have since discovered that neither of those is now employed on that work, both having left.
Here is a tragic situation. What is the answer to it? How are we to find the men and women with the highly


skilled technique which is necessary unless the Government spend money on training schemes and recruitment and are themselves sufficiently impressed with the importance of having this body of people to undertake the work of the mental health service?
I am very well aware that there is a certain background discussion—I think that dispute is too strong a word—about the rôle of the psychiatric social worker and the rôle of the health visitor. In at least one city in Scotland, Aberdeen, health visitors have been given a very comprehensive course on mental health education so that they can take some part in mental health welfare work.
I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) is not here. Aberdeen is, perhaps, one of the most progressive cities in Scotland in mental health work and community care, and has far more facilities than any other city in Scotland. For example—and here is something which other local authorities could well emulate—when it is dealing with children who come into care, children who have been deprived and neglected and among whom there is likely to be a very high incidence of mental disorder of some kind, the children are sent to a reception centre, which is fully staffed and which has a consultant psychiatrist, an educational psychologist, a warden, an assistant warden and a psychiatric social worker in attendance. The children stay at the Craigielea Reception Centre for up to two months so that a decision can be made in the light of all the knowledge about what is the best way of taking those children into care—whether they should go to foster parents or to some kind of home. That is the kind of approach which we need, so that infinite care can be taken with every individual who needs help in any of our community services.
Aberdeen is the first to recognise that the psychiatric social worker can do a skilled job in a way that even the health visitor trained in mental health can never do it. I think that the answer must be that health visitors who have been given a short course on mental health training can work only under the skilled supervision of fully trained psychiatric social workers.
I have heard, to my dismay, the suggestion that Glasgow and Edinburgh might give brief courses of two or three lectures to their health visitors and turn them out to do social case work in mental health. That would be dreadful, and I implore the Secretary of State to see not only that that kind of thing does not happen but that that suggestion is not taken seriously by any local authority in Scotland.
There is the difficulty, which we have to face, of enabling even the most progressive local authorities to understand that this is a very new idea and a new approach to mental health and to appreciate the rôles of the different specialist services in administering the mental health service. That is not easy for a person who becomes a member of a local authority, a person with a wide experience of many subjects, but whose experience does not touch—as, indeed, how should it—mental health work. It is here that the Secretary of State has his job to do. Here is a wonderful opportunity for the right hon. Gentleman to see that in the next four years Scotland makes the progress which it should have been making in the last ten.
It seems to me to be easy to introduce a much faster rate of progress with the Bill and to ask for a tremendous move forward over the whole range of mental health work so that these powers are translated into duties. I appreciate the difficulties about making the powers mandatory—the difficulties being the shortage of staff—but I support my hon. Friends who said that unless the powers were made mandatory it was unlikely that the step necessary to implement them would be taken.
Finally, I make one or two suggestions about filling the tremendous gap in the number of adequately trained social workers available and required to administer the service. We all realise that one can only talk of the service in terms of the individuals who are carrying it out. If we do not talk about the workers who are to carry out the service and the atmosphere of it we are talking just so much hot air. So let us direct our attention to the ways in which we can meet this challenge.
We must realise that the salaries and the status of the social workers in the sphere of mental health are not high enough to be an impressive inducement and to lead to an increase in recruitment. I think it true to say that in most cases these social workers engaged in local authority work would be lucky at the end of their careers to earn salaries exceeding £700 or £800 a year at the most. Generally, it will be found in any local a authority Which employs such people that the majority are earning about £600 a year. That is not enough.
To recognise the importance of the job they are doing, the highly skilled nature of their education and training and the need which we have for them, I suggest that their salaries and status should be at least comparable with those of many groups of teachers in Scotland. They are doing an equally important job. It must be the direct responsibility of the Government to provide training courses, not only for young people who may be induced to enter the service, but also in-training courses for men and women who already work on the fringe of welfare service in the local authorities, who are consumed by an interest in the work and who feel that they would like to take the training and become fully qualified workers.
I have been told of regrettable cases in Scotland within the last year or two when permission to take the mental health course at Edinburgh University, which would qualify a man to be a fully-trained psychiatric social worker, has been refused to somebody working for a local authority. Here was an opportunity for the local authority to acquire a worker with the training needed, but permission for him to have leave of absence for two years to take the training was refused. This man left the employ of the local authority to take the mental health course, but it is extremely doubtful whether he will go back to work for the same local authority.
There should be normal training courses on a vastly extended scale and training courses for people already in the service. Where are we to find some of the people we require? I suggest that the Minister should consider carefully the possibility of recruiting married women who have reached, or will soon

reach, middle age. The Younghusband Committee found that only forty-four married women were employed part-time in social work in the whole of Great Britain, yet this is a field in which it would be desirable that such women should be found employment. We want people who have lived balanced lives to administer the social services, particularly in connection with mental health, and the sphere of recruitment should be extended as far as possible. Here is a possible source of recruits, women whose children are at school, women who are no longer needed at home throughout the day and who, after having a short refresher course, could return to social work and do an extremely good job.
This is one of the most urgent challenges to our society, and unless we can face the challenge of promoting mental health in the same way as our ancestors in the last 100 years met the challenge to provide physical health we shall be a doomed community. We know all about the stresses and strains of modern life, and, indeed, we now diagnose as mental illness much of what would have been dismissed in past years. We now know that we must regard persons suffering from mental illnesses in the same way as people suffering from physical diseases and we realise that they can be cured if the will to do so exists. So I say let us welcome this Bill and ensure that its provisions are carried out by all local authorities in Scotland. Let us ensure—this is the most important aspect—that enough money is spent to enable this to be a Measure which will mean something in the history of Scotland, and that it will not merely be another piece of paper for the Statute Book.
Do not let us pretend that there is any shortage of finance by which help may be given to local authorities on a generous scale, but let us finance the positive promotion of mental health. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton), no one who has observed the way in which money is given or loaned to private enterprise in order to make a profit can doubt that if money can be found for that it can certainly be found, even by this Government, for this purpose. We cannot legislate for enthusiasm, and that, above all, is the quality needed for


this mental health service. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to promote that enthusiasm throughout Scotland.

6.57 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: When we started our discussions on this Bill there seemed to be an atmosphere which presaged a changed attitude in the Scottish Standing Committee when eventually the Bill is discussed there. It seemed that we should have a Bill on which we were all agreed, and one which we could discuss without controversy.
It may well be that after hearing the last few speakers, the Secretary of State for Scotland may have detected a certain measure of concern that the financial provisions or the implications of this Bill might lead us once again, as always in the Scottish Standing Committee, into the paths of acute controversy. At any rate, if the right hon. Gentleman did not realise that following the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) he will appreciate that, although this Bill is well received by hon. Members on both sides of the House, its passage will not make any great difference to the actual problems of mental health, the actual treatment of mental health or the provision of the necessary facilities for dealing with it.
The right hon. Gentleman started his speech by saying that we were dealing with a Bill which consolidated Acts of Parliament relating to lunacy and mental deficiency ranging over about a century. He said that when he had gone into the matter he had entered a legal labyrinth

of archaic phrases, and that now we were to get rid of them. He will receive all the help in the world from hon. Members on this side of the House to get rid, not only of the old phrases, but of some which he has let slip.
I was interested to note that the right hon. Gentleman said we were to get rid of the term, "Her Majesty's pleasure". Looking quickly through the Bill, I notice that that phrase occurs at least twice. If the right hon. Gentleman examines the Bill during the enforced interval in this debate which we are to have shortly, he will see that it occurs in the Second Schedule and I think in Clause 64 in Part V of the Bill relating to the detention in hospital of those concerned in criminal cases. I hope, therefore, that when we discuss Clause 64 in the Scottish Standing Committee—that will probably be in three or four years'time—the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that he has already prejudged the Clause and he will be able to accept an Amendment making a desirable change.
The complexity of the provisions will not be such as will discourage hon. Members from closely examining the Bill, because we appreciate its tremendous importance in relation to so many people in Scotland, not only people who are immediately—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

It being Seven o'clock, and leave having been given to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), further Proceeding stood postponed.

Orders of the Day — CYPRUS

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Denis Healey: I beg to move, That this House do now adjourn.
I am confident that when I and my right hon. Friends opened our newspapers this morning and read of the breakdown or the talks in Cyprus none of us had any idea of raising the matter in debate today. We all hoped that negotiations would be resumed as soon as possible, and none of us wished to do anything which might have been even conceived as interfering with such negotiations; but the tone and content of the Foreign Secretary's statement this afternoon—and, even more, his reply to the questions that were put to him—raised doubts in our minds about the Government's conduct and about their intentions which can, I fear, be cleared only in debate, and it is for that reason that we move the Adjournment.
In particular, the long and apparently premeditated account of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman alleged Archbishop Makarios to have said and done in negotiations, which, I assume, were intended to be confidential, must throw doubt on his readiness to continue negotiations in any form at all.
On the other hand, I have no doubt that he was very disappointed at the breakdown of negotiations which have, after all, been going on now for twelve months; indeed, in one sense for many years. Perhaps he was tired. I hope that he will speak this evening and reassure the House on the Government's intentions. In that hope I should like to put some questions to him, partly concerning the political basis on which the Government are negotiating in these discussions and then concerning the actual conduct of the negotiations as they have so far taken place. I hope that the Foreign Secretary will personally take the opportunity to intervene at an early stage in the debate so that we shall have a chance of considering his reply before the end of the evening.
First, I should like to ask him some questions about the basis of the Government's position in the negotiations. As we understand it, on the basis of his statements in this House and of newspaper reports, the critical issue on which

the negotiations have broken down is the area of the British bases on the island which are actually to be under British sovereignty. Again, so far as one can find out from newspaper reports, the area of the bases under direct British sovereignty was stated on 31st January in final terms, and there has never been any change in the Government's position since 31st January on this fundamental issue on which the negotiations then broke down and on which they again broke down yesterday in Cyprus.
It seems to me that two questions are involved. There is, first, the question of the physical location of the military facilities required on the island; and, secondly, there is the question of the juridical status of the area in which the facilities are located. It seems to me and to my right hon. Friends that these two issues, which are really quite separate, have too often been confused in the negotiations. Some years ago, General Harding gave it as his opinion, and the Government accepted it, that Britain's military requirements on the island were such as to require control of the whole of the island's territory. In those days, we used to define the difference between the Government and the Opposition in the phrase that the Government wanted Cyprus as a base whereas the Opposition were prepared to be satisfied with a base on Cyprus.
Finally, the Government accepted the Opposition's view of the location and extent of the military facilities on the island. They agreed, by accepting the London and Zurich Agreements last year, that Britain's military needs could be satisfied with facilities which were concentrated in certain areas. It seems to me that, although there is a very strong case for demanding sovereignty over the island if we believe that we need facilities all over the island, that case is enormously weakened once we admit that we can be satisfied with bases which can be confined to small parts of the island, to parts as small as, I think, 3 per cent, which is the proportion of the island accepted in the latest British negotiating position.
After all, this island on which we are requesting bases will be an independent State. The independent State will have its own armed forces and there will indeed be armed forces on the island


provided by two other independent States under the Agreement—armed forces provided by Greece and by Turkey. In such a situation, it seems to me quite impossible to imagine that we can operate military facilities in one small part of the island without the full agreement and consent of all the rest of it. We cannot surround an area, even as small as 120 square miles, with a ring of steel, particularly if we hope to use our troops on the island for purposes other than the defence of bases. In fact, the Cypriots living inside the base areas will have the same loyalty to their own communities on other parts of the island and will live in the same places within the bases whatever their theoretical juridical status.
Their behaviour will, in fact, be the same whether they are considered to be citizens of a sovereign British area on the island, or whether they are considered to be ordinary Cypriot citizens. It is quite impossible, once we content ourselves with a base on the island, to operate the facilities we require without co-operation from everybody living on the island and from the individuals living inside the base areas. Quite frankly, it seems to me that, if we cannot get such co-operation from the inhabitants of the island without conceding British sovereignty, we may have to face the concession of British sovereignty in order to get it.
Moreover, according to the accounts of the negotiations, some of the military facilities which are necessary for the operation of the British bases will in any case be outside the area of sovereignty. If that is so, it seems to me that the issue of sovereignty over the bases has acquired an importance in the negotiations which is far from justified by the facts of the situation. After all, in the modern world we have many precedents of countries successfully operating bases in foreign territory over which they do not exercise sovereignty but which they simply lease as tenants from the sovereign power.
America has such bases all over the world, including those in this country. We may argue that the Americans finally found it necessary to leave their leased bases in Morocco because of the opposition of local inhabitants, but we found it equally necessary to leave our

sovereign bases in Suez for exactly the same reason, although a completely unnecessary insistence on juridical sovereignty led to a long period of ill-will and even bloodshed in the process of recognising the fact that we could not operate the bases without the good will of the local population.
Now I come to the conduct of the negotiations themselves, on which I must say the statement by the Foreign Secretary this afternoon was far from satisfactory. In the first place, it was surely clear when the London negotiations broke down on 31st January that there could be no further negotiation about the future of the British bases unless there were a readiness to compromise on the British side, as well as on the Cypriot side. Yet, the fact is that the British Government, according to reports—perhaps the Foreign Secretary can throw new light on this—have adamantly refused to discuss any compromise on the demands for a sovereign base area as originally put forward as a final demand on 31st January.
I confess that I cannot see the point, as I said this afternoon, of sending the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies to Cyprus to continue the negotiations if he was not empowered to show a little flexibility on this critical issue. Moreover, I must say that if the Government genuinely desired success in these negotiations, the Colonial Under-Secretary was perhaps not the best person to put in charge. His past record on the Cyprus issue is well known, and it is just as well known in Cyprus as it is in this House. Certainly, nothing which has happened in Cyprus in the last ten days has given anyone, either here or on the island, any reason for modifying the estimate of the Colonial Under-Secretary in this respect which was formed as long as several years ago.
The second question I wish to put about the conduct of the negotiations themselves is, why were the Government so determined throughout to operate under a sort of time limit? I was glad to hear the Foreign Secretary say this afternoon that perhaps this attempt was misconceived and that it will not be repeated, but I wish he would throw some light on the extraordinary way in which the time limit was defined and, from time to time, extended. To an outsider, it seemed that we have been saying to


the Cypriots, "Every week you delay in teaching an agreement will mean at least a month's delay in putting the agreement into practice."
The newspapers have said that reasons of Parliamentary procedure make delay of this order inevitable. I can say on behalf of my right hon. Friends in the Opposition that we would give every possible facility in our power to expedite the passage of any agreement that was reached at any time when it was reached. I should like to know why the Foreign Secretary has let it be said, for example, that after the negotiations broke down yesterday the independence of the island would have to be delayed from 19th March possibly into the middle of May.
Here I come to what really is the nub of our complaint. The Foreign Secretary said this afternoon that Her Majesty's Government broke off the negotiations yesterday because unless the negotiations were completed yesterday, it would be impossible to give the island independence by 19th March, although in fact a compromise solution was put forward yesterday by one of the parties to the dispute, the leader of the Turkish community, and he has declared himself most embittered by the Government's failure even to consider it. But the Foreign Secretary also told us this afternoon that, although he broke off the negotiations yesterday because the 19th March time limit could not be reached, he wanted the negotiations to continue. Can he tell the House how, when and under what conditions he wishes the negotiations to continue? Surely, if he is really interested in a settlement, it was his duty to continue the negotiations until a settlement was reached and not to make a purely arbitrary date of 19th March and questions of Parliamentary procedure—which cannot weigh very heavily, certainly among the Cypriots—an argument for breaking off the negotiations entirely on an arbitrary date.
I hope that the Foreign Secretary, now that he has had time to read the telegrams, can tell us a little more than he could this afternoon about the reaction of Dr. Kutchuk, the leader of the Turkish community, because hon. Members on both sides of the House have had an opportunity of reading the account in The Times this morning. I do not think I can do better than repeat it. The Times correspondent, in his report from

Nicosia in this morning's newspaper, said:
Tonight, Dr. Kutchuk bitterly attacked British handling of the events of the past few days. He also revealed that he had acted as mediator in the talks and had put forward compromise suggestions. Though Archbishop Makarios did not object to them, the British side did not appear to be in favour of them, he said. 'Three hours later. …'
This is in direct speech—
'a communique was issued by Government House without first consulting me on its terms and conditions.'
One of the things which has most encouraged us to hope for an agreement in this long dispute is the fact that during the recent negotiations in London and in Cyprus, there has been, to put it no higher, a far greater degree of co-operation and understanding between the leaders of the Greek and Turkish communities on the island than, frankly, one had any right to expect in view of its past history. I must say that I consider it deplorable in the extreme that when the leader of the Turkish community put forward proposals to bridge the gap between the Greek community and the British Government, the British Government should have refused summarily even to consider them.
I cannot say I entirely liked the tone in which the Foreign Secretary uttered grave warnings this afternoon of threats of communal trouble on the island—threats and warnings which were uttered in terms and in a tone such as to amount almost to an incitement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The important fact about the negotiations to which I again draw attention—

Mr. William Yates: In fairness to the Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member could not say, nor could any hon. Members say, that his statement was an incitement.

Mr. Healey: What I can say is that all the evidence available to this House from the Press has suggested that the Greek and Turkish communities on the island have been working together with an astonishing degree of understanding in the light of events in recent years and that to raise the question of the possibility of further communal trouble on the island at this stage and in this context was a grave disservice to the success of negotiations in future.
We on our side of the House very much hope that this debate may at least serve the purpose of opening a new chapter in the negotiations, and we would not deny that if no further steps are taken in negotiating a settlement of the issue in the near future, all sorts of dangerous possibilities may emerge. It is no good us thinking in Britain that time is on our side. Almost every party to this dispute is acting under very serious pressure from his own supporters and there may at any moment be a complete breakdown in the existing state of the moderate good will which would make a future solution well nigh impossible. If such a breakdown should occur, quite apart from the appalling human misery and suffering which will be incurred by the inhabitants of the island, it will mean the final end of the Zurich and London Agreements and the final end of any hope of securing any of Britain's legitimate interests on the island and in the area.
I should like to end with this appeal. Since the General Election the Government have shown a remarkable capacity for adapting their colonial policy to the facts of the situation, an adaptation which is no less welcome for being appallingly belated. If the Government can make such an adaptation in the extremely difficult and dangerous problems with which they have to deal in Central and East Africa, has not the time come when they must show an equal flexibility on the no less dangerous problem of Cyprus?
I believe that, following the breakdown of negotiations yesterday, there is desperate need for a new initiative. I hope that at some stage this evening, perhaps in reply to the debate, the Foreign Secretary will offer such a new initiative and will speak not only to the House but also to the people on the island of Cyprus, who are anxiously waiting for some sign in this country of a readiness to resume negotiations.
Moreover, I believe that if the Foreign Secretary and the Government can immediately show the sense of urgency and the spirit of good will which is required, we can see this challenge, which has baffled and tormented us all for so many years, finally met in the next few months.

Mr. Peter Smithers: Before the hon. Member concludes, would he allow me to put a question to him? I have listened with great care to the case which he has been making in considerable detail. The whole of his case rests upon the assumption that, if the British Government were to make just another concession, an agreement would be possible. On what does he found that assumption?

Mr. Healey: I am sure that I gave no such impression to anyone but the hon. Member. What I said—and I hope that the Minister of Defence will address himself to this point—is that the basic stumbling block to an agreement so far has been a British insistence on sovereignty over the base areas which has far less justification in the facts of the current situation than it might have seemed to have several years ago. I firmly believe—and I challenge anyone to dispute it—that if the Government showed more flexibility on this issue, an agreement could be rapidly concluded.

7.22 p.m.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I hope it will be for the convenience of the House if I intervene at this stage and quite shortly try to set out the position. After all, defence and the bases form the central issue of these negotiations, as the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) has said. I think the House is grateful to the hon. Member for his care in not imparting any undue controversy into this subject. We are all interested in trying to find a solution to the problem of Cyprus, none more than the Minister of Defence, who wishes to get on with the organisation of his military responsibilities.
Perhaps it will help the House if I set out the issues quite clearly. I took part in all the negotiations and, therefore, I hope it will help the House if I briefly set out the situation in respect of the bases. As the hon. Member rightly surmised, my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary will intervene towards the end of the debate.
I hope I may say without any offence that the hon. Member's last remarks show how wide a misconception one can get of these negotiations if one has not taken part in them. The question of sovereignty is not the sole issue at all. It is a stumbling block, but, as my right


hon. and learned Friend said this afternoon, the negotiations have fallen for the moment, so to speak, only because of the date of 19th March—a date which was quite agreeable to both delegations and which followed logically when it was found that the first date, in February, could not be met.
I want to set out the position which has been reached from the defence aspect. May I state briefly what are our defence requirements? I have outlined them to Archbishop Makarios, Dr. Kutchuk, Mr. Averoff and Mr. Zorlu, and at various times in the negotiations they professed themselves as satisfied with the position. I will explain the difficulty, and I think it is fair here to quote the Archbishop, who said to me one day, "Everything goes very well when we discuss these matters. It is only when we have to put them in writing that it gets very difficult."
That has been one of the stumbling blocks throughout the negotiations. One hoped that one had reached an agreement and then it slipped out of one's grasp when one tried to reduce it to words. It was then, perhaps, that Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kutchuk began to be worried about the political implications and things slipped cut of one's grasp.
I would remind the House of what was stated in Command Paper 679. On page 12, hon. Members will find:
that such rights are secured to the United Kingdom Government as are necessary to enable the two areas as aforesaid"—
that is, the Akrotiri base area and the Dhekelia base area—
to be used effectively as military bases, including among others those rights indicated in the Annex attached"—
I will not read it out, because it is very long and sets out the whole list of rights—
and that satisfactory guarantees are given by Greece, Turkey, and the Republic of Cyprus for the integrity of the areas retained under British sovereignty and the use and enjoyment by the United Kingdom of the rights referred to above;
We therefore stand on a fairly clear position. In his statement at the end of the Conference, the Prime Minister said that the settlement was one
which preserves to the United Kingdom the defence facilities which are essential not only for our narrow national purposes but for the greater alliances of which we are members.

That, I think, is where a great many people misunderstand the position. The Dhekelia sovereign area and the Akrotiri sovereign area are not colonies, as my right hon. and learned Friend explained this afternoon; they are not a kind of Cyprus colony. They are bases in which a theatre reserve can be held to meet our world responsibilities in N.A.T.O., C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O. and all the other responsibilities which we bear. In these areas it is conceivable that at times 20,000 men would have to be deployed.
I am saying this because I do not accept the hon. Member's view that the greatest point of difficulty is that of the rights within the sovereign areas. I will come to that in a moment, but we have made so many concessions that I had imagined that it was settled. I think that the problem is the size of the areas. This involves the difficulties which the Greek and Turkish Cypriot delegations find in assessing quite clearly what we want these bases for and how much has to be done within them.
If we take this figure of possibly 20,000 men, we must add provision for wireless stations, barracks, airfields, radar and a limited range in exercise areas, schools, married quarters, and hospitals, because we are pulling into these areas many facilities which at present we have over the entire island. In addition, we must have a strategic stockpile, some room to move about, and some room in which the men can acclimatise themselves. I think that if hon. Members take that view—and I think the hon. Member accepted the point—then the House must be agreed that our requirements in respect of these bases are the minimum which makes any military sense. The hon. Member said that the figure was 3 per cent. He is quite right. In other words, we propose to cede 97 per cent. of the island of Cyprus and to retain 3 per cent. for our military purposes.
I think that the difficulty which the Foreign Secretary and I have faced is explained by the fact that one cannot even begin to understand all these things unless one has a very complicated map in front of one. If the hon. Member for Leeds, East is interested, he can have a copy of the map which I have here. I am sorry that every hon. Member cannot have one. If he will examine it he will see the very odd shape which the areas now assume, and how we have squeezed,


pushed and pummelled everywhere in order to make every possible concession.
It is only fair to the Foreign Secretary and to the Government to say this—and I do not say it in any sense against the Archbishop—but in an afternoon one would make yet another concession and feel that it had been well received, but the next day one would find that it was merely a springboard for another demand. I am not complaining about that. The Archbishop, too, has his troubles and responsibilities. However, it should be understood that a most painstaking effort has been made to meet him on the base areas, which is the whole crux of the issue between us.
I will say this to help those who have not maps. We started in April at 170 square miles. On the military advice of the Chiefs of Staff, we came down to 152 square miles. Then I felt that we should try to make a further gesture in the recent negotiations, and at my request the Chiefs of Staff reassessed the whole situation—this is the reason for the very funny line on the map—and we came down to 120 square miles.
At one time I thought that the Archbishop accepted that position, and I thought that the Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers accepted it also. I understand now that the Archbishop says that that area is unacceptable. That was not my understanding during the negotiations. Again, I am not trying to impute blame to anyone else because I think that these negotiations are difficult and I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that it was probably a mistake to try to conduct them under any kind of time limit. It may be better to go quietly on with great patience to see whether we can solve them. At any rate, we came down to 120 square miles. In other words we asked for only 3 per cent. We realise only too clearly what the hon. Gentleman said, namely, that we must have Cypriot co-operation and good will.
The negotiations, certainly in my experience, could not have taken place in a better atmosphere. There was no sense of anger or quarrel. There was just the difficulty of bringing the Turkish and Greek Cypriot delegations to the sticking point, a thing which

perhaps all of us in the House understand when one has to return to one's own country and defend a settlement in one's own House of Commons in front of one's own representatives. That is why I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was very careful not to try to raise the temperature unduly at this moment. I am trying to do the same.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the sites outside the area. We brought them down from one hundred sites to thirty. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, we brought the number of Cypriots down from 16,000 to 1,000. However, we went further and made an offer which I am sure we will stick to, namely, that we would rebuild Akrotiri village—which in any case is at the end of a runway and in a very unattractive position—outside the sovereign area. That would remove all the Cypriots except for a few farmers, and so on. I am not saying that large numbers would not come in to work every day. Of course they would. We have tried to meet what we thought was one of the Archbishop's most difficult points, namely, that we should have sovereignty over a large number of his citizens.
I do not say what I am about to say about the negotiations in order to be polite to a colleague. I say it so that the House may know the facts. My right hon. and learned Friend could not have tried harder to secure an agreement, and I think that without boasting I might say I could not have tried harder either. I certainly bullied my Ministry and my military advisers to make every possible concession which I thought we could make to try to make it agreeable to the Turkish and Greek Cypriot delegations and yet still keep some military sense. After all, if there is no military sense in this, it would be better not to have an agreement at all.
I will now give a list of some of the concessions we made. If the hon. Gentleman or his right hon. Friends like to look at the map it will perhaps make better sense. We offered to shift the training areas to an area which suited the new Government better than the ones we had selected. We offered to give up the control of Nicosia airfield—that was a very major step and, indeed, was written into the London Agreement—as soon as Cypriot trained control officers were available. We


made enclaves and tongues which took out all the villages except Akrotiri, which we offered to rebuild. We took out a place called Pissouri, which is in the Episkopi area on the west side of the island. We squeezed the Pergamos area to the very minimum required for the special installations there. We then gave them the Dhekelia power station in an enclave. It supplies the power for all the base areas. I hope that I have slid enough to show that we tried to make every concession which we thought sensible.
As to administration, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, in education, health, agriculture and our pledge about commercial competition we did everything we possibly could. However, I do not leave the House in possession of the full facts unless I say—I want to make it plain again that I am not attacking Dr. Kutchuk or Archbishop Makarios—that it is very disappointing, after trying as hard as my right hon. and learned Friend and I tried, to find that one's concession of yesterday is the springboard of today.
That is why in the end there must surely be an end to this process. If not, obviously there can never be an agreement. My right hon. and learned Friend, in saying this afternoon that there must be a limit to these concessions, is taking the right course to try to effect a settlement. I would not blame the negotiators for going on negotiating as long as they think that there are more concessions to come. I ask the whole House to accept from me that that is the difficulty we are in at the moment. If we show that we are too anxious or too willing to effect a settlement, how can one blame the other side for pressing for more concessions? Therefore, I beg hon. Members to understand that if we are ever to get a settlement—I have outlined some of the extreme lengths to which we have gone to secure one—we must call a halt somewhere.
I could have given many other examples, but I hope that the House will accept that we went as far as we possibly could. This is almost the tragedy of the situation if it fails. If we could start this tomorrow I am convinced that it would work perfectly well. These bases will be an asset to Cyprus. They will bring in a great deal of money.

We have now gone so far on administration, training and everything else that I do not believe that they will cause any interference with the life of the island. I believe that there will be no difficulty at all. As the Archbishop said, these things are all right if you talk about them across the table once you start trying to put them into written agreements it becomes very difficult.
In summing up I must say this. It is only fair to my colleagues to say that the military advice now given to me, and my position, is that we cannot make any further major concesions on the bases or on the rights we need. That must be said and understood, otherwise this business can go on for ever. There have been many more concessions of which I could have told the House. I hope that when the full story is told it will be seen that the Archbishop has driven a very hard bargain and obtained a very good result, as he can claim if it is any satisfaction to him. I only wish that he would decide to claim the prize.
I hope that this debate will not make it more difficult. I hope that those in Cyprus who bear this heavy responsibility will realise that I do not think that time is on anyone's side. It may not be on our side. I do not think it is on anybody's side. I pray that the debate will help towards a settlement which will be very much to the advantage of Cyprus and end this terrible sore which has been on our minds for so long.

Mr. James Callaghan: The right hon. Gentleman said that sovereignty was not, as he understood it, a stumbling block. What is the British Government's position in relation to sovereignty in view of the fact that the map we have just seen shows that the road from Dhekelia and Famagusta runs almost wholly through territory which will be outside our sovereignty?

Mr. Watkinson: That is another example. I did not want to bore the House by stating every detail, but at one time there was a large slice of territory there. Because we thought that it might help the Archbishop, we said that we would ask for rights over the road only and give the Cypriots all the land, although the Ayros Nikolas


area was very important to us. As to sovereignty, the position is this. It was set out in the London Agreement—I know that the Archbishop agreed to this—that these areas should be called British sovereign base areas. The Archbishop does not dispute that. They are, therefore, sovereign areas in which we would wish the Cypriots to do every possible piece of administration that they can, because we do not want to do it ourselves. We do not want to set up a civil administration. We shall be very grateful to them if they will do everything that they possibly can, but I must make it quite clear that they remain British sovereign areas.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. Frank Tomney: After listening to the first two speeches in this debate, I do not believe that to delay the Scottish business was quite justified. This question was resolved a long time ago. It is not, and never has been, a question of sovereignty and of bases. It has always been one of no sovereignty and no bases. I feel that if the House keeps that in its mind it will have some idea of the prospects of the negotiations that are still to take place on these Cyprus bases.
It is just twelve months since the discussions at Lancaster House concluded, and the statements then made make very nice reading. Events since then have not borne out the high hopes contained in the statements, nor will they—for the obvious reason that even if Archbishop Makarios were able and willing to concede these bases, with or without our sovereignty over them, he would be prevented from so doing. I believe that the power of Colonel Grivas behind the Archbishop will prevent these bases ever being given to this country for its legitimate defences and its interests in the Middle East.
What, therefore, do we do? The Minister of Defence has just spoken of our making one concession after another until we are now left with an area of 120 square miles which, quite frankly, is inadequate for any defence base. It is just a playground. In relation to our defence requirements, it is not the size of a tennis court. What, therefore, does the right hon. Gentleman expect to gain by clinging to an area of 120 square

miles when, even if it were granted, it is obvious that our position there would be so untenable that we would be unable to set up or to manage the bases? As I suggested in a supplementary question to the Foreign Secretary last week, would it not be better for us to withdraw from Cyprus and allow the population there to draw the obvious conclusions?
What are the obvious conclusions? Let the Cypriots know them. According to the Lancaster House statements, we are offering them, at least tentatively, citizenship within the Commonwealth. That implies responsibility within the Commonwealth. We are offering them the benefits of Commonwealth associations which, if the best figures I have are correct, will mean a benefit of £28 million per annum. We are offering them one-way flights to London to take up rights of British citizenship here—and 7,000 of them have already done that since the emergency. They have not gone to Greece. They have come here, and they have come here in great numbers.
What kind of a set-up is this, and how long is it to continue? I have searched HANSARD in an attempt to find the original points of dispute. There have been some long and turgid debates here, and unnecessary bloodshed in Cyprus. The earliest reference I can find was on 7th March, 1956, in a debate on the Middle East, when, in reply to an interjection by the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery), the Leader of the Opposition said:
It has always been our view and, so far as I know, the view of the Government that it was perfectly possible to meet the demands of the Cypriots for self-determination while retaining military bases in Cyprus. I should be very surprised indeed if the Colonial Secretary were to tell the House that he had been negotiating with Archbishop Makarios on any other basis."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1956; Vol. 549, c. 2131.]
Archbishop Makarios is not the master of this situation, otherwise there would have been a settlement. In view of the Tripartite Declaration and what happened to the Canal, and what happens to Kenya, we have to decide, as a people, not as Opposition or Government, what is best to enable us to meet our commitments. We are responsible to our own citizens.
Promises are contained in these documents. Let us read what the representative—not a Minister—of the Greek-Cypriot community said at the winding up of the Lancaster House proceedings:
This is a great day, Mr. Chairman, in that the positiveness of unity and co-operation has prevailed over the negativeness of division and strife. It marks the beginning of a new charter for Cyprus both in the relations of its people with the people of the United Kingdom as well as in those between the Greeks and Turks in Cyprus.
He went on to say:
It is the spirit in the hearts of men that counts most.
Those documents were drafted in that spirit. I say to the Minister that if this is all he can get for the legitimate defence of the country, and to meet our obligations to N.A.T.O., we are better without it. Let the Cypriot people, who are claiming rights of association and privileges within the Commonwealth, draw their own conclusions.
As I began, so I finish. This never was an issue of sovereignty and bases; it is an issue of no bases and no sovereignty.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Peter Emery: It is with great diffidence that I make my maiden speech in a debate of such seriousness, and one that has so suddenly arisen. I do so, Mr. Speaker, because I feel so immensely concerned that we should be able to obtain the right solution in Cyprus. I shall, to the best of my ability, seek to be impartial and uncontroversial, but if I should stray from that path I do not expect the House to give me any indulgence or any protection.
There may well be a great misunderstanding about the statement made to the House today by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. I have looked at it most carefully, and I find that if one analyses it three things emerge. The first is that we stand today, as we have always stood, on the desire to obtain an agreement in line with the London and Zurich Agreements. Thai is what we have always asked for and it is our position at this very moment.
Secondly, how can it possibly be suggested, as it was suggested this afternoon, that the Government's position in these negotiations has been rigid? The

illustrations given by both the Foreign Secretary and by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence are ample proof that we have bent over backwards to try to reach an agreement that would be parallel with the agreements of London and Zurich. When one learns that the population in the suggested areas has decreased from 16,000 to about 1,000, I do not see how anyone can talk of rigidity. How could there ever be any suggestion of rigidity in face of the fact that, only in the last few days, we have heard that there has been an increase to £10 million, at £2 million per year, in the grant suggested over a period of five years? Surely this could be regarded by no hon. Member as evidence of a rigid approach. It seems to me that no evidence can be drawn from the statement made by the Foreign Secretary to show that our position has got out of hand. We stand by what we have always stood by in our approach to agreement in Cyprus.
I wish specifically to deal with the problem of negotiation. All right hon. and hon. Members must surely agree that, in any form of negotiation, there is some basic and absolute principle from which one cannot retreat. In all the efforts which we have made, there must be in the negotiations something from which we cannot retreat. I, am concerned—I say this understanding well all I might be implying—lest this debate should do harm in that respect, by which I mean, lest it should be taken by the people of Cyprus as ground for believing that this House of Commons is willing to see further retreat and further breakdown in our position as it stands precisely now in the negotiations. I hope that the speech made by the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) does not mean that he is suggesting that we should give way yet again. If that is his suggestion—I hope very much that it is not—I believe that it would do a great disservice not only in our negotiations in Cyprus but in any future negotiations we may have in any place in the world.
Any attack which is made on the position of the Foreign Secretary this evening must be an encouragement to Archbishop Makarios to be more intransigent, or, perhaps, not to the Archbishop himself but to some of his most radical and reactionary supporters. None of us can possibly desire that.
There is one other aspect which has not been mentioned so far in the debate, namely, the fact that Cyprus itself is the only base from which we as a nation could give any aid to Turkey. We must be quite definite in realising fully that that is part of our responsibility both in N.A.T.O. and in our world treaties. It seems to me that that form of defence cannot be done away with or ignored.
The position as regards sovereignty was agreed at the London and Zurich Conferences. Surely no hon. Member will suggest that it was not agreed by the Turkish and Greek communities and by the Turkish and Greek Governments. Since it was once agreed by all, can any hon. Member suggest that it is now in disagreement? No one can doubt what, in fact, happened. I feel that we must be definite. We cannot, indeed afford to back down from the position we have taken up on sovereignty. Here, again, I find support for the argument I have been trying to advance, that when one reaches a position of finality it is no more than utter weakness to withdraw from it.
I have not spoken at all of my constituency of Reading or of the constituents I represent as, I realise only too well, it is traditional that I should do in a maiden speech. I believe, however, that there are times in this House when matters of greater importance even than one's constituents are discussed, and there are times when people must speak for what ought to be the British attitude throughout the world. I hope that in what I have said this evening I have done a little to that end.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Robinson: I am sure that I speak for all right hon. and hon. Members when I offer congratulations to the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Emery) on triumphantly surmounting that ordeal which we have all experienced and which, I think, few of us forget. The hon. Gentleman showed courage on two counts, first, in choosing a debate for which he can have had only the minimum of time to prepare a speech, and secondly, in choosing a debate on a subject which, at any rate in the past, has been somewhat fraught with party strife. He did advert at the outset to the possibility of his being

controversial. I should not like to suggest the extent to which I think he mainaged to overcome the danger he saw in his path. However, I am sure the whole House enjoyed his contribution and looks forward to further contributions from him from time to time.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), I think this debate was essential, because we could not leave the position of the Cyprus negotiations where it was left at the end of the Foreign Secrtary's statement this afternoon. The debate was necessary to clear the air. Although some of the fog has been dispelled by the Minister of Defence, a good deal of fog, at any rate for me, still remains.
I understand—this was not made quite clear by the Minister of Defence—that disagreement between the two sides in the negotiations has focused on two major points, one, the size of the bases, and the other, certain security factors connected therewith which could be interpreted as an aspect of sovereignty. There are, of course, other minor differences, but I gather that none is of such a nature that it is likely to be irreconcilable if agreement can be reached on the two main points. I will take the second of them first.
As regards the administration of the bases, the Foreign Secretary has said, and the Minister of Defence echoed his words this evening, that several concessions have been made from what was, apparently, our original conception of sovereignty over the bases. But in the statement in The Times newspaper this morning, which appears to be very well informed, I see a suggestion that we are insisting that the facilities which we have granted in the normal way over the area of the bases to the Cypriot authorities, national and municipal, will be subject to total withdrawal or, at any rate, suspension in the event of an emergency. The Minister did not mention this at all, and I should be interested to know from the Foreign Secretary whether it is one of the two major stumbling-blocks. If it is, it very much seems to me that the Government are once more falling into the old error of believing that a strategic base in a foreign country can remain viable in the face of the hostility of the local population. I would have thought that if there was one lesson that ought to have


been learned by the Government in the post-war period, the lesson of Suez, of Jordan and of Ceylon, it is that the value of a base can only depend upon the extent to which it is there with the willing consent of the indigenous population, and if the Government cannot learn that lesson—

Mr. F. M. Bennett: Would the hon. Gentleman care to comment on the fact that in the three examples he has given there was no sovereignty? They were all leases.

Mr. Robinson: I am afraid that I have never paid the slightest regard to the feature of sovereignty. I believe that the concept of sovereignty was put in purely as a sop to back benchers like the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. Bennett) and his hon. Friends, and that it never meant anything at all. This is just a strategic base in what will be a foreign country and, as such, it is dependent and will always be dependent for its effectiveness upon the willing consent of the local people.
After all, these bases are to employ 15,000 Cypriots. Are we really suggesting that they could be effective bases in a sudden emergency if all those 15,000 Cypriots decided to withdraw their labour, or were perhaps instructed by the Cyprus Government to withdraw their labour? The fact is that these bases are valuable in co-operation with the Republic of Cyprus and that they are pretty well valueless without it, and the sooner the Government face that situation, the better. This desire to withdraw all local government facilities in the base areas in face of an emergency sounds to me something like a request from the military authorities, and it should be the duty of the Government to inject into them a little political realism.
Passing now to the question of the size of the bases, I want to ask some questions of the Foreign Secretary, and I think they are important questions. Why was the area left so vague at the time of the London Conference? Now that it seems to be the main point of disagreement, why was not something written into the document arising out of the London Conference to indicate what the Government had in mind? The Minister of Defence has told us that the original figure was 170 square miles. That

was the first specific demand in area by the Government. Archbishop Makarios has said that he had always understood the requirement to be an area of not more than 36 square miles.

Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Gentleman reads the London Agreement, he will find that that 170 square miles was the first delimitation of the areas set out in the Agreement.

Mr. Robinson: I am grateful to the Minister for his intervention, but I do not think it has added anything. I said it was the first figure that was mentioned. In the London Agreement, there is simply the mention of two areas, one including the three villages of Akrotiri, Episkopi and Paramali, and the other containing the four villages of Dhekelia. Pergamos, Ayios Nikolaos and Xylophagou. I have not had the advantage of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench of seeing the map which the Minister passed over, but it is quite clear that if we simply mention three villages the area enclosing those villages can be of a very variable size. The Minister of Defence was not in his present office at the time of the London Conference. What is of importance in the absence of any specific area mentioned in the documents is what was said at the London Conference. How did the situation arise in which Her Majesty's Government thought they were talking of 170 square miles and Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kutchuk thought they were talking of 36 square miles?
Somebody had second thoughts. That seems to me to be the most obvious and most likely explanation, and I should like to know who had the second thoughts. [Laughter.] The Minister of State may laugh, but I had the advantage of talking to Archbishop Makarios within a day or two of the signing of the Agreement, and of course we talked about the bases. He said that he did not anticipate any trouble over the bases, and he meant it, but he foresaw considerable difficulties on certain points. He said that there were difficult things to negotiate in the next twelve months. The bases, he said, would not be difficult, but here we are finding the bases the one stumbling block and the one cause of the deadlock.
One can only imagine that these second thoughts which I suspect the Government


had arise out of the fact that they now want the bases for some purpose other than that envisaged at the time of the agreement twelve months ago.

Mr. Watkinson: Mr. Watkinson indicated dissent.

Mr. Robinson: The Minister may shake his head, but I should like evidence about this. We were always told throughout the Cyprus debates by successive spokesmen from the Government Front Bench that we needed these bases on the island of Cyprus in order to discharge our responsibilities in the Middle East—that was what we were told—and in order to safeguard our interests in the Middle East. Now, we are told that we need them for our world responsibilities, our N.A.T.O. responsibilities and our S.E.A.T.O. responsibilities, as the Minister of Defence said. Incidentally, on N.A.T.O., I have had cause before in this House to point out that the island of Cyprus was always excluded from the area of N.A.T.O. at the specific request of the British Government. It is a little odd in these circumstances that we are now claiming that these bases are needed for the discharge of our N.A.T.O. responsibilities. I have never had a satisfactory reply to that question. I know it is the fact, because General Gruenther informed me when he was Supreme Commander.
Now I come finally to the actual conduct of the negotiations, especially in the last phase. I will not repeat all that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East said in opening the debate, when he quoted Dr. Kutchuk's statement. I do not want to reopen any old wounds, and I would only say that, in view of the very considerable assistance that Dr. Kutchuk was to the Government at some very difficult periods in the Cyprus emergency, I think that they have treated him in a very cavalier fashion on this occasion.
The communiqué which was issued yesterday stated:
Yesterday, Mr. Amery explained to Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kutchuk Her Majesty's Government's final position.
Yet the Foreign Secretary said today that he wants the negotiations to continue. What kind of negotiations are these? It is not negotiation to say, "This is my decision; it remains open, and so long as the other side like to come along and say they accept it, we can reach agreement."

That is not negotiation; it is an ultimatum.
I should like only to re-echo what other hon. Members have said—that time is not on anybody's side in this matter. It really is urgent that we should get some conclusion to this problem—the problem which has been bedevilled from the very outset by its association with the Suez base. The fact that the famous "never" statement by the Minister of State, then Mr. Hopkinson, was made on the same day as the evacuation of the Suez Canal Zone base was announced has made unnecessary difficulties throughout. I hope we can now turn our backs on the past, and that the Government will not adopt a stiff-necked attitude at these negotiations, but will realise that these bases can only be of value if they carry with them the consent of the independent Republic of Cyprus, and will get down to serious negotiations to reach an agreement.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. William Yates: What I want to say to the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), who served on the Conciliation Committee with me and with others, is that the attitude of the Opposition has sometimes been too political in dealing with Cyprus. It ought to be above politics, not only at this particular moment, but even during the emergency. It was unfortunate that the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) referred to the statement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary as being one of incitement. That did not do credit to the hon. Member, who is a man of great intelligence, and I am sorry that he said it.
The whole point of this debate tonight is to say nothing whatever that will prejudice any possibility of persuading Her Majesty's Government or Cypriot leaders to resume negotiations. I am talking from three years' work on The Cyprus Conciliation Committee. In addition, I met Archbishop Makarios during his visit to London and talked recently to the Greek Ambassador and the Governor about this most distressing and dangerous subject.
I want to say a few words to the people of Cyprus and especially to those in London who may mistake the tenor of what we say in this House today and also to the British community in Cyprus,


who must, indeed, be worried at the sudden breaking off of negotiations. My message is perfectly simple. It is "At all costs the Cyprus situation must be kept calm and the Cypriot people must trust this House and above all the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to put this matter right in the shortest possible time." It must be done not only for the future of our defence but also for the good name and honour for which Britain stands and, indeed, for our international promises to the other countries which signed the London Agreement.
It is tragic, when one thinks that almost a year ago such good will was generated at the London Conference. Reading those documents today one cannot help but feel a pang of deep regret. Therefore, I shall not say anything tonight that will make matters worse, but I shall say a few things which I hope might be helpful.
It is quite clear what the dispute is about. It is about a misunderstanding in the London Agreement of the extent of the base areas which would be needed by Her Majesty's Government to make them fully militarily effective—a misunderstanding between the idea taken up by the Archbishop at the time and the idea of Her Majesty's Government on the area that they would require. I may be wrong. Perhaps time will show whether I am right or wrong in this assumption. I am only trying to be as helpful as I can in this difficult situation.
I have never yet heard either Dr. Rossides, Archbishop Makarios or Dr. Kutchuk ever go back on their statement in the London Agreement that they recognised that Britain was to have two sovereign bases in Cyprus. What has been the trouble is that to make those bases fully effective and to give full effect to the Annexe on page 12 of the White Paper it was found necessary to have additional quasi-sovereign rights. If the Agreement is to fail over a narrow dispute concerning the extra land rights required to make the bases fully effective, I should be horrified.
I made suggestions on this matter both in the Press and to the Government and to be Governor of Cyprus. Surely it is within the wit of the present Govern-me tit and in particular of the Foreign Secretary, who has made so much effort to find a compromise solution that will

solve the problem of these extra additional areas now required by Her Majesty's Government. Cannot the areas so required by the Services be made permanent trust areas held in joint sovereignty in perpetuity for the use of the people of Cyprus and for their defence provided by Her Majesty's Government? Cannot some formula be found in this way, if necessary on N.A.T.O. lines? Why cannot Cyprus now be brought fully into N.A.T.O.? Why cannot Cyprus have two seats on the N.A.T.O. Council if that would enable both the Cypriot leaders and Her Majesty's Government to compromise their present difficulties?
I have just telephoned Reuter and have been given the statement mentioned by the hon. Member for Leeds, East and by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney). Last night the Vice-President-elect of Cyprus offered Her Majesty's Government his services to negotiate and to act as a mediator to obtain a settlement. I cannot understand why Her Majesty's Government can have turned down that offer of a friendly Cypriot leader who is only too anxious to find the way to an agreement.
I want to ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary only one question. He can answer it now or later. In view of the offer made by Dr. Kutchuk and in view of my right hon. and learned Friend's urgent desire that negotiations should continue, will he tell the House now that he will now authorise Her Majesty's Minister in Cyprus to accept the offer of Dr. Kutchuk and carry on the negotiations with him as a mediator?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I will deal with the point when I make my speech.

Mr. Yates: I was not intending in any way to be discourteous. I thought it might be helpful at this moment for the House to know, in view of my right hon. and learned Friend's statement at the Dispatch Box this afternoon, whether he wished the negotiations to commence as soon as possible but I quite appreciate his difficulties in the matter.
We have now come to a situation which can be resolved only by the good will of the Cypriot leaders and the British people. I am convinced that if


Her Majesty's Government take sufficient courage and carry on negotiations, they will receive the support, not only of the entire Conservative Party but of this House, and, of course, of my constituents in The Wrekin.
It is important that international undertakings should be observed. I have in mind especially the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the spirit in which he brought the message from the Cyprus Conference to this House. He said:
I myself have always believed that when the future of the world is so uncertain and fraught with so many dangers, we cannot hope to win through except in a spirit of partnership between people and nations of what I call interdependence. This agreement has been made in that spirit, and it is therefore an expression at once of our hope and of our faith.
We have that faith and the hope that the Prime Minister's orders will be carried out and none other.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: I rise to intervene briefly in this debate deeply conscious of the responsibilities which all of us in this House have, and personally very conscious of the complexities of negotiations of this kind. I speak, I think I am right in saying, as the only back-bench Member of the House of Commons and the only Member on this side of the House who has ever personally been involved in negotiations between the British Government and the Greek Cypriot leaders.
The Foreign Secretary may, perhaps, recall the meeting in the then Prime Minister's room which preceded my departure for Nicosia in February, 1956. Although a great deal has happened since then, and although I have expressed strong views in the House from time to time about the Government's policy, I am still to some extent hampered by the fact that I was a participant who was taken into the confidence of both sides during the short period preceding the breakdown of the 1956 negotiations. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, I understand the complexities of such negotiations very well. I say to the Minister of Defence that those complexities do not arise only from the difference of background and of approach of the participants concerned, as I am very deeply aware, having sat in

the same room with Field Marshal Sir John Harding and Archbishop Makarios on many occasions. At this time, the difficulties arise not only because of these factors but also because of the nature of the way in which the Zurich and London settlements were reached.
At this moment, none of us would want to call into question the implementation of those Agreements. Of course, we hope that there will be a peaceful and friendly settlement guaranteeing the future of an independent Cyprus on the basis of those Agreements, but one is bound to recall that many of the difficulties facing the Minister of Defence and the Foreign Secretary are the result of the very curious circumstances in which the original settlement at Zurich was reached between two Foreign Ministers—neither of whom had been there—of Governments which had a very close interest in Cyprus but no responsibility for it, with no representation of the Cypriot people themselves, of the Government of Cyprus or of the Government in this country.
A great many loose ends were left at Zurich and were not finally buttoned up in London. However much the Minister of Defence may be convinced of the difficulty of doing business with Archbishop Makarios, I can assure him that he on many occasions privately and frankly said to me how difficult he found it to understand the tortuous and byzantine way in which the Colonial Office in Whitehall conducted its negotiations. I have heard very similar feelings expressed on both sides of the negotiating table. At all events, he was not present at Zurich, nor was Dr. Kutchuk.
Precisely what transpired at the time of the London Agreement is not publicly known and probably is better not discussed in this House at present, but it would be quite legitimate for Archbishop Makarios to have assumed that the area specified in the London Agreement was very much smaller than that being at present sought by the British Government. He has said that he envisaged an area roughly the size of that now covered by existing military installations, namely, an area of about twelve square miles. The British Government are asking for an area which may be only 3 per cent. of the total area of Cyprus, but it is a very much larger percentage of the useful surface of the island.
The Minister of Defence passed to some of my right hon. Friends a map which I was not able to see, but I have been to the areas concerned, and perhaps that is even better than looking at a map. If the Minister of Defence had been down to the citrus groves surrounding our military installations, having come through some of the more arid areas of the island, he would have seen that there was a very strong emotional reason which makes it quite different when one sees the place and when one talks in terms of 3 per cent. What we are, asking for is incidentally the size of the island of Malta.
One major difficulty at the back of the mind of Archbishop Makarios and perhaps of the Turkish community leaders is whether we are interested only in military facilities and the military use of Cyprus or whether we have other considerations in mind. I am sorry to say that I think that the Foreign Secretary added fuel to the flames of those doubts. I am sorry that it was not the Minister of Defence who dealt with this subject at the end of Question Time. If he had, I am sure that we should not have asked for this debate at all, and I only pray that the Foreign Secretary, if I may say so without impertinence, handles the end of the debate as skilfully as the Minister of Defence handled the beginning of it.

Mr. Watkinson: Mr. Watkinson indicated dissent.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Of course, the Minister of Defence has to shake his head, and we quite appreciate that. There is a doubt in the minds of the Cypriots about the real purpose—

Mr. Watkinson: I think that it is fair game to ask this: does the hon. Member entirely accept my argument?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I do not want to stress the points on which I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's arguments, for the reasons which I hope I made plain at the beginning of my speech. But there is a good deal which we on this side do not accept, and I shall have to mention that in a few moments.
There are doubts in the minds of the Cypriot leaders that military considerations are not the only factors which we have in mind. The Foreign Secretary did a very grave disservice to the negotiations—I hope that it was a slip of the tongue and that he will correct it in

his speech—in saying that one of the reasons for having British troops in Cyprus was to prevent difficulties between the two communities. If it is to be argued in the House of Commons that an additional reason for having British troops in Cyprus is to police the island in the event of trouble between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, that is a new argument and a very dangerous one. But, of course, we hope that the Foreign Secretary will make it plain that that is not what he meant when he spoke in the House this afternoon.
The Minister of Defence asked whether we accept the whole of his case. Of course, we do not. We accept that in the realities of British politics at the moment the negotiations will be conducted on the basis of sovereign areas in which we have our military installations on Cyprus. Many hon. Members on this side think that that whole conception is nonsense, that the introduction of the element of sovereignty was only a sop to some back-bench Members opposite, that it has no reality and that if the British Government and the military in Cyprus are on good terms with the Cypriot people it does not matter whether or not we have sovereignty.
If we are on bad terms with them and if what the Foreign Secretary described as an emergency arises the bases are untenable. We cannot understand why when the Suez Canal area, with all the troops in it, was untenable in the face of rather mild Egyptian interference, looking back on that, Ministers try to claim that some paper agreement about sovereignty will meet the realities of the situation on Cyprus. Many hon. Members on this side question the need for the bases at all—we have not discussed that matter so far during the debate—but we on this side assume that there are probably three purposes in the minds of the Minister of Defence and his military advisers, none of which we accept.
The first is that the bases should be used as places from which the Caucasus and other areas of the Soviet Union can be attacked conveniently either with bombing aircraft or with rockets. In the first place, we hope that that situation will never arise. In the second place, we cannot understand why rocket


bases or airfields for nuclear armed aircraft should be safer or more useful on the island of Cyprus than on the mainland of Turkey.
Secondly, we cannot understand, and I have never understood even when discussing the matter in great detail with Field Marshal Harding, the kind of arguments which the right hon. Gentleman's military advisers are giving him at present about the value of Cyprus as a whole. If we are on good terms with the neighbours of Cyprus, notably Turkey, the facilities of Cyprus compare very badly with those we have in Turkey, and we do not need them. If we are on bad terms with the Turks, Cyprus becomes quickly untenable—and this is talking of the situation in 1956. Today, when Mr. Khrushchev has only to touch a button for Cyprus to disappear, as he vividly told me and the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) when we went to see him a year ago, the situation is very much changed from that. At all events, we do not accept the strategic arguments in favour of maintaining military installations on Cyprus.
Nor do we accept the very old argument that military installations on the island are required to bolster up what is now known as the Cento organisation. The Government were wise to give that no geographical name, after their unfortunate experience with the Bagdad Pact. I remember that I was told by Field Marshal Harding how important it was that we must have sovereignty of all Cyprus until we had consolidated the whole Bagdad Pact area.
The situation has changed since 1956 and we do not accept that argument now. Nor do we accept what we believe is the third reason, which is that we may one day want to have a minor edition of the Suez venture—a British military intervention in the Persian Gulf. We hope that that will never arise and that we shall gradually liquidate our present political and military commitments throughout the Persian Gulf. But even if we had that intervention, how could the Foreign Secretary, with his experience of Suez, maintain that Cyprus would be useful in 1960 to 1961? How would he get his aircraft to the Persian Gulf when he has to fly over foreign territory in

whatever direction he goes? We therefore do not accept the basis of the argument behind these negotiations, though we accept that in the realities of political life under a Conservative Government, unfortunately for years to come, that is the basis on which we negotiate.
Finally, we do not accept the fourth and new argument propounded by the Foreign Secretary—that British troops are required on the island to keep peace between Turks and Greeks, because if the granting of independence to Cyprus has any meaning at all it is that they shall be free to conduct their own affairs and that whatever rights we enjoy in the sovereign areas will be used only for military purposes.
I want to ask the Foreign Secretary one specific question on a matter which has very genuinely puzzled other parties to these negotiations, and I beg him to give an explanation which they and also we on this side of the House will appreciate. When the negotiations started, it was hoped that independence day would be on 19th February. The negotiators were told that the deadline for that was 25th January. That was an interval of about twenty-five days. When the negotions were not concluded on 25th January, we were then told that the next target date was 7th February. Negotiations had to be finished by them in order that independence day should be declared on 9th March.
If my calculations are right, that is an interval not of twenty-five days but of forty days. When that target date was not reached, it was put out that there would have to be an interval of two months and that independence day would have to be postponed until 19th May. Now we are told that because of pressure of business in the House and because of the Parliamentary Recess, the interval would have to be longer and that the earliest possible date would be some time in June.
In view of the assurance given by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) at the beginning of the debate that the Foreign Secretary would have every co-operation from the Opposition in the matter of time in the House for passing a Cyprus Independence Bill, what is the situation now, and how does the procedural abjection on the part of the Government arise? If the right hon.


and learned Gentleman could clarify that situation, he would be doing a good service to the progress of the negotiations. In that context, we must press him to tell us whether it is his intention that negotiations shall proceed. As a result of what he said earlier this afternoon, we are puzzled as to the exact position of the British Government. Have the negotiations been broken off? Is there to be a lull before talks start again? What is the present situation?
It is not unreasonable for some parties to the negotiations to be a little apprehensive of what may happen next. What happened the last time after negotiations broke down between British and Cypriot leaders was that Archbishop Makarios was deported for a year to an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Colonel Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott: Colonel Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott (Ripon) indicated dissent.

Mr. Noel-Baker: The hon. and gallant Gentleman shakes his head, but that is what happened. At that moment I was urging the Archbishop to keep the door open.

Sir M. Stoddart-Scott: Oh.

Mr. Noel-Baker: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman wants to intervene, perhaps he will do so audibly and I will answer his point. I was saying that I happened to be personally involved in the negotiations, and I remember that after they broke down I spent some time in pleading with the Archbishop not to close the door on negotiations. The next thing I heard was that he had been loaded on to a plane and sent into exile while a propaganda campaign was mounted against him.
In those circumstances, although the Archbishop has recently become respectable to hon. Gentlemen who sit on the back benches opposite, it is not surprising that he may be a little apprehensive about what is to happen next. So we ask the Government to give us a clear assurance on the present position. What instructions do the Government propose to give to the Under-Secretary of State, who is in the area at present, and when will the discussions be resumed?
I close by saying that, whatever reservations many of us on this side of the House have about the nature of the London and Zurich Agreements and

about the nature of British military requirements in Cyprus, we hope with all our hearts—nobody less passionately than myself—that an agreement will be reached which will be satisfactory to both countries.

8.37 p.m.

Lieut.-Commander S. L. C. Maydon: As the debate proceeds the more convinced I become that there was never any need for it. Much, only too much, of what has been said this evening will go to encourage those powers striving to prevent agreement not only in Cyprus but, I suspect, in this country as well.
The hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) said that the nub of the Opposition's complaint was that the negotiations were broken off yesterday because it was impossible to complete them in time to grant independence by 19th March, and that Dr. Kutchuk's offer to mediate and to produce a compromise had been discarded. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not here to confirm whether I have his words right or not, but I think I have given a rough paraphrase of them.
The fact remains that none of us knows what, apart from mediation, was Dr. Kutchuk's offer. Undoubtedly it was unacceptable to the British Government and therefore rightly it was discarded. [Laughter.] I say "rightly" because, if the base areas are to be of any practical value, there must be good will on both sides. If hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot see that they will never see anything.
It has been said, and I think it has a great bearing on the difficulty, that at the original successful negotiations in Zurich no one was present who was a real first-hand party to the dispute. I am sure that is the main reason behind our present difficulties. All along we have had to interpret other people's ideas and put on them what we feel is a right and just interpretation.
One thing at least is clear from what has been said tonight. There are not many hon. Members who believe that sovereignty is the matter at issue. I am convinced that it is the size of the bases, and perhaps the misunderstanding over that stems from the vagueness of the original Zurich draft.
What we have seriously to consider is, first, that for a base to be of any use at all there must be good will on both sides, otherwise the exercise is futile. Secondly, for the base to be of any use it must be of adequate size. After a number of concessions, brief details of which were given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence, the area has been whittled down to 120 square miles, or an area 10 miles by 12 miles.
That area is divided, roughly, into two main areas. The western area, with the big Akrotiri airfield, which is suitable for large and fast landing and fast take-off modern aircraft, and the Episkopi headquarters, and the eastern area of Dhekelia, which is more properly the area for the brigade group, a training area, and an area not only for barracks and married quarters but for military workshops and those ancillary works which go to make a military base.
To accommodate a force which my right hon. Friend said might at times have to be up to 20,000 men in a total area of 10 miles by 12 miles is an immense jigsaw puzzle. Not only is it necessary to have hard standings and permanent works such as hospitals and other buildings, but a fairly extensive area for military practice firings. The modern high velocity anti-tank weapon requires a considerable area to provide a safety range when it is fired in a locality where there are civilians, particularly in a locality like Cyprus where one is never quite sure where a civilian may be, although there are red flags flying and he has no right to be there.
Apart from that—and the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) drew attention to this—under certain circumstances the facilities and rights that are to be retained by the Cypriots in the British sovereign base areas might be withdrawn in times of emergency. That happens everywhere where there are military garrisons and the likelihood of military exercises and military emergencies. It happens in this country, in cases where there are military emergencies, that the powers even of the police are temporarily taken over by military police. Anybody who has any experience of these matters must know that that is necessary.
The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker), who, I am sorry to see, is no longer in his place, seemed to assume that because we required a military base on Cyprus one of its objects was to attack the Soviet Union. With all that has gone on since even February of last year, when the Prime Minister visited the Soviet leaders in Moscow, to say nothing of all that went before that, I should have thought that ideas of that sort were so out of date as to be hardly worth mentioning. Has it never occurred to those people that the purpose of British defence is to prevent others attacking us and attacking our friends?

8.47 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Wells (Lieut.-Commander Maydon) seemed to carry within itself the seeds of its own destruction. He asked a question which hon. Members on this side of the House have been asking—how can there be good will on Cyprus—and he posed—

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: That was not the question I asked. I asked what was the use of a base unless there was good will on both sides.

Mr. Hughes: That is precisely the point which I wish to emphasise and I think that the hon. and gallant Member—

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: If the hon. Gentleman wants to describe precisely a point in someone else's speech he must in future be more precise.

Mr. Hughes: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is most helpful. I have listened to many defence debates and I have frequently heard the argument that the worst possible place for a base was on an island—and I have always agreed with it—even when the base was in this country. I cannot conceive how the Foreign Secretary will carry out the instructions of his back benchers without taking some kind of action against Archbishop Makarios and deporting him to the Seychelles again.
But history has moved forward and we have had innumerable prophecies about Cyprus from hon. Members opposite which have never come off. I do not want to go over all of them, but I remember hearing Field Marshal Lord


Harding deliver a speech in Westminster Hall in 1956 when he told us confidently that the rebels in Cyprus would be under lock and key before Christmas. We know what happened—Lord Harding was sacked and Archbishop Makarios emerged as the spokesman of Cyprus.
I am not a supporter of Archbishop Makarios. If I lived in Cyprus I should be a supporter of the people who organised the Left-wing demonstration last Saturday which was repudiated by the Archbishop and the Right-wing element.

Mr. Patrick Wall: Communists.

Mr. Hughes: I remember putting a question to Archbishop Makarios—I am not any more a Communist than the Prime Minister.

Mr. Wall: Does not the hon. Gentleman know that the demonstration to which he refers was organised by the supporters of AKEL, which is a Communist-led trade union organisation?

Mr. Hughes: I never repudiate Communism, but I do not mind what hon. Gentlemen call me so long as they do not call me a Conservative. I have done many curious things in politics, but I was never associated with the rebels of the Suez Group.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson: But the hon. Member is a rare old Tory. [Laughter.]

Mr. Hughes: I missed that one, but I will not pursue it.
I remember putting a question to Archbishop Makarios when he was a comparatively insignificant figure in international politics. We were in one of the Standing Committee Rooms and very few people knew anything about it. In a speech on that occasion the Archbishop made the point that he was not against the British base in Cyprus. I was against it, and when the time came for questions I asked the Archbishop why an archbishop should not be against the base on principle. He said: "I am in favour of the base for exactly the same reason as the Archbishop of Canterbury is in favour of Britain being a base". So my opinion of the Archbishop as a Christian went down and my opinion of him as a politician went up.
Now we are beginning to come down to fundamental things. Last Thursday, in reply to a Written Parliamentary Question, the Minister of Defence told me that we have already spent £90 million on Cyprus. I have a Question down on the Order Paper tomorrow asking him what we intend to spend in Cyprus in the future. Judging by what he said today we are already committed to quite a considerable expenditure in Cyprus in order to appease Archbishop Makarios. We are going to shift villages. There is a village at the end of a runway, and because that is objectionable to Archbishop Makarios the whole village is to be cleared away.
The Minister of Defence is being far more reasonable about this runway than he was about Prestwick when he was Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation. For months we tried to get him to spend a couple of million on making good a job of Prestwick Airport, but he was completely obstructive. Here he is prepared to throw away millions of pounds in order to placate Archbishop Makarios. It is £90 million now. What will the figure be after all these plans have been put into operation, including even the shifting of villages? How much expenditure will be borne by the British taxpayer?
Let me come back to the position in Cyprus, the position of Archbishop Makarios. The Left-wing Communists say that they do not want a British military base in Cyprus, and I can understand it. They agree with the ex-leader of the Suez group, Captain Waterhouse. I remember the debate in this House when the then Prime Minister was defending the evacuation of Suez. In order to appease the Suez rebels he produced an elaborate argument saying that in the time of the H-bomb these bases were obsolete. What did the Government do? They went from Suez to about 300 miles nearer the potential place from which the H-bomb is likely to come. Here my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) got down to realities.
I do not know whether right hon. Gentleman opposite remember the newspaper articles written by Mr. Randolph Churchill. The Foreign Secretary did not want to hear about them the other day. But Mr. Randolph Churchill had a very interesting interview with the military


commanders on the spot, and he said quite clearly: "There is only one real reason why we are in Cyprus and that is because we want to use the runways of Cyprus as a bombing base in order to bomb the oilfields of Southern Russia."
Whatever the Prime Minister said in Russia—and I think that he did a good job in Russia—these realities are still there. The military strategists have not caught up with the foreign policy of the Prime Minister and so we are hanging on to these bases in Cyprus for the sole purpose of carrying out the elaborate strategy of bombing Russia in the event of war. Mr. Randolph Churchill may say things that are disagreeable to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, but that is undoubtedly the reason. It leaked out when we talked about our N.A.T.O. commitments and S.E.A.T.O. commitments and were proposing to use Cyprus as a strategical base in a strategy which is already obsolete.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon said that it would be a push-button war. Everyone now knows that we are not winning the rocket war, the strategic war against the Soviet Union. We saw in the newspapers only a fortnight ago that the Russians can now fire a rocket from somewhere in the U.S.S.R. to within a mile of a target in the Pacific 4,000 or 5,000 miles away. [An HON. MEMBER: "Eight thousand miles".] It is a long distance anyway. If the Russians can do this and be so confident about it, is it any wonder that there is some slight disquiet on the part of the intelligent population of Cyprus who realise that if the West fell out with the East, without Cyprus being involved in any quarrel at all, Cyprus would be destroyed.
That was exactly the point made by Captain Waterhouse when he was the leader of the Suez Group. He said, "Why go to Cyprus? One or two hydrogen bombs and there would be a hole in the sea where Cyprus was." That was the most sensible thing that Captain Waterhouse ever said. He was right, however, about the strategy of it. So today we have the Foreign Secretary in a hopeless and complete dilemma. I believe that he will either have to start the whole business again of imprisoning the Cypriot leaders or that he will have to give in and so make enemies of the

remnants of the Suez group. That is the position which he is in; there is absolutely no escape from it.
I say that the sensible position would be to cut our losses, to realise that Cyprus as a base is obsolete and that we are spending £90 million on it which could be spent at home. The people who say that the time has come for the British to leave Cyprus are right. By doing so they are looking further ahead. The people of Cyprus do not want military bases in their country. They do not want to be destroyed. I believe that the Government would be doing a useful service if they said: "The time has come to cut our losses, to clear out of Cyprus and to stop spending any more money on a position that cannot be defended."

9.0 p.m.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson: The House always loves listening to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I certainly do, and I must admit that I was amazed to find at the conclusion of his speech something with which under certain circumstances I should be able to agree.
I believe that the people of this country are profoundly disturbed over the Cyprus situation. I do not believe they are interested in our hammer-and-tongs party warfare in this House. I think they appreciate some of the speeches of a moderate non-party sort made in this House today. They are asking—and are entitled to be answered—where do we go from here? In the few minutes in which I shall speak, I want to try to examine the possibilities before us in a realistic frame of mind.
There have been many exhortations to the Foreign Secretary and the Government to begin negotiations all over again. I have no first-hand knowledge, but from what I can make out as an ordinary man-in-the-street, there have never been any real negotiations. I cannot really call them negotiations when there has been step back, step back on our part and no concessions whatever from the other side. I am beginning to wonder whether the Archbishop really wants an agreement. I begin to wonder—I think it best to be frank and outspoken on these occasions—whether he dare reach an agreement with us. I believe the figure of the assassin still lurks in Cyprus politics. It is useless


for us, from either side of the House, to urge the Foreign Secretary to recommence negotiations unless they are to be real negotiations. I hope he will not promise the House to start negotiations all over again unless we have a firmer basis on which to build.
The second possibility is that there should be a pause and that Cyprus should go on developing its quasi-independent institutions at home, that we should mark time for a few months, or perhaps a few years, and trust to wiser counsels, more calm, more moderate counsels prevailing. There is a great deal to be said for that. If the Foreign Secretary believes that might produce a detente and a calmer situation. I very much hope that he will announce it tonight.
But in all negotiations there is something which, for want of a better word, I call the ultimate sanction. I do not think "sanction" is the right word, for I think the word "sanction" means the force one applies in order to get what one wants. There is an ultimate, a ne plus ultra, in all negotiations. I think there is bound to come a time when we reach that ne plus ultra. It might be when the potential bases are whittled down to such small dimensions that they are no longer worth it. I think they have been whittled down enough already. I am not a strategical expert and have not the strategical insight of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, who knows exactly what the bases are for. I accept the advice of the Government that it is vital and in the interests of this country and of N.A.T.O. that there should be a British base there. I accept the need for these areas as long as they can be usefully and properly employed. The ultimate sanction must be the moment when we say it is no longer worth going on, and we should leave Cyprus.
By far the most realistic speech, with the exception of that of the Minister of Defence, was made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney). We should not be in the position of suppliants to the people of Cyprus. We have conferred, and do confer, far greater benefits on the people of Cyprus than the benefits we are asking from them. We confer on them, and are very glad to have them, the benefit of a large

Cypriot colony in this country, earning their livelihood and helping the economy of this country. We may possibly confer on them—by "we" I mean the Commonwealth as a whole—the great and valuable benefits of membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations. We have certainly promised to confer upon them a very great deal of money. I agree with the hon. Member for South Ayrshire that we should all like that money to be spent on our constituencies.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The hon. Member is getting on. In another five minutes I shall have converted him.

Sir G. Nicholson: If the hon. Member converts me he will have converted me to extreme Toryism. I do not know where I should then end. If ever there were a crusty old Tory in the House of Commons, it is the hon. Member for South Ayrshire.
I believe that the time has come when we should say to Archbishop Makarios and to Cyprus, "If you push us too far we shall chuck in our hand and go".

Mr. Hughes: What shall we do then'?

Sir G. Nicholson: What will Cyprus do then? We shall be all right. What will they do if the 7,000 Cypriots in England becomes aliens? These people will not go to Athens; none of them have gone there in the past. What will they do without the money which we have promised them? What will they do without membership of the Commonwealth?
I commend to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary the speech of the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North. I believe that the people of this country have had enough of blackmail, enough of retreating and enough of being pushed from pillar to post in these so-called negotiations. Unless something definite is declared and unless we take up a definite position and say that if we are pushed too far we shall leave Cyprus, then the people of this country will condemn the Government for the part which they have played.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Although I find myself in virtually total disagreement with the hon. Baronet the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson),


I hope that I shall emulate the moderation with which he gave us the benefit of his views this evening.
At the outset, I wish to make it clear that I entirely accept the analysis of the Minister of Defence that this problem relates not to a question of sovereignty but to a question of the extent to which sovereignty should be exercised. To that extent I find myself in disagreement with the implied suggestion of the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) that sovereignty should be ceded in some way or another and that there should be some new arrangement. I say in parenthesis that I think that the cession of sovereignty is a very high price for a small nation to have to pay in order to obtain its independence. We have never asked any other part of our Colonial Empire to pay such a price. Nevertheless, it was a price which was agreed in the London and Zurich Agreements and therefore I do not seek to resile from it.
In so far as the Minister of Defence has diagnosed the trouble, one is entitled to ask how it has come about. The hon. Baronet the Member for Farnham suggests that there has not been an agreement because Archbishop Makarios has not wanted an agreement and has been frightened to make an agreement. I would point out to him that these Agreements were signed over a year ago and that it is only very recently that public dissatisfaction and disagreement has been expressed by the Archbishop.
In my view, what has happened is that there has been a total difference of interpretation between the British Government and the Cypriots of the Third Annex, Section B, which relates to the areas in which Britain wishes to retain bases. That is where the difference has arisen.
If the Foreign Secretary had been asked at the time of the negotiations, "Why do you want these two areas?", I suggest that he would have replied, "Because we have bases there which we want to retain." That would have been the reason for which he would have sought to include these specifically-named seven areas. But his interpretation, as I see it, is that this entitles him not merely to those bases but to the entire geographical hinterland, as much

territory as can be brought within the confine of the geographical survey. It is as if the Americans had an agreement to continue their installations at Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, and said afterwards, "Of course we said Brize Norton, but we mean every hamlet, every parish and every acre which geographically comes within Brize Norton."
That is the interpretation being placed upon that paragraph by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It may be the right interpretation. It may be the interpretation which he had in his mind when signing the Agreement. However, it is possible for a reasonable man to have an alternative interpretation of the Agreement. I suggest that that is the interpretation at which the Greek Cypriots have arrived. It may be right. It may be wrong. The Agreement was loosely drafted. The Minister of Defence said that these negotiations are extremely difficult. One discusses things one day and it is extremely difficult to put them into writing the next.
There is reference in the document to particular places where we have bases and to particular rights which are asked for. Those rights are specifically set out. They relate to the use of an airfield, the use of port facilities at Famagusta, the way in which additional sites may be acquired, and so on. There is no reference whatsoever in the Agreement to geographical expansion. On examining the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech at the time of the London declaration one finds that time and time again he referred to the British bases. That was the reason why the area was being kept—because of the British bases.
I suggest that this is the position. Originally those installations covered twelve square miles. It was realised and appreciated by the Cypriots that we would want to move other installations into the area and concentrate all our resources in this small area, and they suggested that to do that an area triple the existing area would be sufficient. They suggested 36 square miles. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said, "No. What we mean by retaining those base areas is that the actual geographical area which we now want is ten times that which we originally agreed". [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Gentlemen may doubt my arithmetic, but twelve multiplied by ten is 120.


We have asked for an area ten times larger than the area upon which there were physical installations. That is the position. It may be right. It may be wrong. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might genuinely have gone into negotiation with that interpretation in mind. I suggest that the Cypriots have another interpretation.

Mr. Wall: The right hon. Gentleman has already quoted from page 12 of the White Paper. Certain villages are set out in the Annex. If he refers those villages to a map, does he not agree that it must be a very much greater area than 36 square miles, just by putting the villages on a map?

Mr. Thorpe: First, I thank the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) for making me a Privy Councillor, albeit temporarily. I do not agree. We are dealing with base intallations at specific places. Prior to the Agreement, those bases occupied 12 square miles, as they do today. That is a fact which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has confirmed. I accept that when the Foreign Secretary went into these negotiations, he felt in his mind that he was entitled to as much geographical area as could be covered by the particular place names. I suggest that the Greek Cypriots went into the negotiations—I do not blame either side; I merely suggest that this is what happened—thinking that all the British wanted were their existing bases geographically defined with a reasonable area for expansion.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will not the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) about the villages named in the Annex?

Mr. Thorpe: Indeed I will. I can give the hon. Member a list of hamlets and villages which are to be brought under British sovereignty within the 120 square miles which are not technically within the geographical areas named.
I suggest that there is a genuine difference of interpretation. If I may be allowed to say so, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is a very experienced lawyer, and he knows that very often there are contracting parties who, quite genuinely and honestly, interpret similar

words in different ways. That is why there is a very real question of interpretation here.
I think that if the Cypriots had known when they signed that this meant that two out of their three underground water supplies were to be under British sovereignty, that a very high percentage of their best agricultural property was to be under British sovereignty, and that Britain would have to exercise certain rights over a thousand Cypriot nationals, they would never have signed the agreement in the first place.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has recognised that, and has said that the British Government will give an expression of intention to delegate the administration of these areas to the Cypriots. The Cypriot authorities have said that that is not enough, and that they want a written agreement. One can only suggest, in view of the ambiguities of which the Foreign Secretary has spoken, that it would be a very good thing to have one.
This has arisen through a genuine difference of interpretation as to what precisely the British Government wanted, and I suggest to the Foreign Secretary that instead of saying that our interpretation is the right one, and the only one, and that we refuse to believe that anyone else could have another, he should get round the conference table and try to thrash out the interpretation so that it means the same thing to both sides.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Peter Smithers: The hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) clearly feels that, at long range, he has been able to throw some light on the root causes of this difference—

Mr. Thorpe: If the hon. Member will allow me, my most recent source of information was Archbishop Makarios's chief political adviser, to whom I was speaking yesterday.

Mr. Smithers: I think that the casual listener to this debate who had not any particularly detailed knowledge of the matter might have received the impression that, over the years, the negotiations had been conducted by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker), with some assistance from the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes).
I well remember the great sincerity with which, at one time, the hon. Member for Swindon undertook a part in negotiations. As I believe an hon. Member has just said, one of the valuable products of all this is, apparently, that the hon. Member for Swindon is writing his memoirs, which will no doubt reveal that on his dove-like mission he contacted everybody, including the cherubim and the seraphim—but I leave it to members of the Opposition Front Bench to settle with their hon. Friends whether they managed all their contacts well or ill.
The substance of the situation has, I believe, to some extent escaped the House this evening. We have been talking about a disagreement on the details of the British bases in Cyprus, but it would be a mistake not to recognise that that discussion about the British bases has to be cast against the background of the far wider international interests in which we, the Cypriots, the Greeks, the Turks, N.A.T.O.—indeed, the free world—are all involved.
It is not just a question of whether these bases can be effectively used as bases. The issue is the much wider one of whether the settlement arrived at in the Cyprus problem will be a settlement which will command the support not merely of Cypriots but of the Greeks and the Turks and which will thus ensure the stability of the political situation in the eastern Mediterranean, one of the vital regions of the world.
I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney). I admired very much his forthright logic. As far as it went, I thought it was perfectly correct. But it seemed to me to be based, as, for that matter, were some of the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson), on the assumption that we are here dealing only with strategic interests.
If we look back over the history of these long and difficult negotiations and consider the events of all the years before the three-Power Agreement, when any satisfactory solution seemed beyond our grasp, we ought now to be honest with ourselves and recognise that we could not simply walk out of Cyprus because we became impatient at the situation, because we found that our bases were not satisfactory, unless we first assured

ourselves that the diplomatic and political situation in the wider international sense was satisfactory to ourselves and satisfactory also to all those for whom, in a sense, we are trustees in this matter.
There has been a great deal of talk tonight as though the Archbishop was the only person who had to be satisfied, but if we are to be content with our work in this long and arduous task, we must ensure also that the Turkish Government and people outside Cyprus, as well as inside, are satisfied. No mere abandonment of our international responsibilities could possibly justify us in bringing down the re-established friendship between Greece and Turkey and in dealing a savage blow at the strength of the free world in the whole area.
We must recognise tonight that the agreement which was so nearly reached in this matter, to the jubilation I believe of every hon. Member who sits in the Chamber tonight, was possible only because we succeeded in arriving at a settlement of the wider diplomatic issue. The three-Power Agreements, in my submission, stand or fall as a whole. We cannot simply walk out of our part without expecting that all the rest of the structure will inevitably collapse and we shall be back where we were in the dangerous position which existed several years ago.
I apologise to the House for taking a few minutes at this late hour to make that point. I do so simply in order to emphasise that we cannot have it go out from the House that we could simply walk out of Cyprus or that we are likely to do so without due consideration of the rights and interests of all those in Cyprus and in other countries to whom we are in a sense answerable.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan: If I may say so to the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers), I think that everyone recognises that the agreements that were reached at Zurich and later ratified, initialled or signed—I am not quite sure what the technical term is—at Lancaster House represented a balance. And it would be very difficult indeed to upset that balance. The hon. Member is absolutely right to make that point. He speaks from a special position—I do not know whether to say it in


praise or blame—because he was, of course, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the former Colonial Secretary.
Despite the views of the hon. and gallant Member for Wells (Lieut.-Commander Maydon), I think that this debate has been a good debate and very thoroughly justified. I am not sure that the hon. and gallant Gentleman fully appreciates the purpose of Standing Order No. 9. The purpose of that Standing Order, as I understand it, and as I think it is accepted, is that at a critical moment, when urgent matters of definite public importance are coming to a particular point, the influence of the House should be brought to bear. That is the purpose of the Standing Order, and that is what we have been trying to carry out.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: I appreciate that very thoroughly. Does not the hon. Gentleman himself appreciate that there are occasions in history when it is far better to hold one's peace, say nothing and hope for the best?

Mr. Callaghan: What the hon. and gallant Gentleman is saying is, in my view, one of the reasons which has led to the lowering in the prestige of this House, that is to say, we take command of events and judge them only after they have happened and not when it is still possible for us to bring influence to bear upon the Government. I say to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I think he is profoundly mistaken. If he believes in a democracy, provided that views are expressed as sincerely as they have been here tonight on all sides and with a sense of responsibility, I am certain he will agree that it is right that we should make use of all Parliamentary opportunities of so doing.

Lieut.-Commander Maydon: Lieut.-Commander Maydon rose—

Mr. Callaghan: I cannot give way. I want to get on to matters of substance.
I believe that the Foreign Secretary, having heard the expressions of opinion of hon. Members on all sides, will feel that he himself knows more about what is the attitude of the House as a whole, and it is for that reason that we believe it was right to ask for this debate, especially following upon a report in The Times which this morning filled me with

considerable apprehension. The headlines were:
Cyprus Independence Date Put Off Indefinitely. Tension Rising in Island As Talks Break Down".
The report states:
All of which adds up to something suspiciously like an 'ultimatum' to the Cypriots to accept the British plan—or face an indefinite deferment of their freedom from colonial status.
No one of us who took part in these miserable debates which we have had over the last six years could let this statement go without attempting to call the Government to account for what was taking place. I say to the Government that there is a responsibility upon them, as well as upon all the other parties in this dispute, to see that we do not return once again to that position which Cyprus occupied between 1956 and the early part of 1959.
I was very glad to hear the Minister of Defence say this evening that the question of sovereignty was not really an important question, because that is a stumbling block which I think has been got out of the way. The right hon. Gentleman said that it is not the main point, as I understood it, and I want to make sure that I am not misinterpreting what the Minister said. He said that it was not the major point.

Mr. Watkinson: I should like to be very careful about this. The hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend concluded his speech by saying that he thought sovereignty was the main issue. I said I did not think it was the main issue, and, indeed, there had been a great many exchanges on this. I thought, therefore, that this was not the main issue before us and that it was the size of the bases.

Mr. Callaghan: I am very glad to have that statement because it seems to us that if the issue of sovereignty were thrown into the debate once again, we should be discussing a matter that is now, to a large extent, unreal. I commend to the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Emery), whose maiden speech we all enjoyed and who said that we cannot afford to back down on the question of sovereignty, some words uttered before he came into the House on 19th March last year, when we had our last debate,


by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), who said:
The utility of these areas to Britain, whatever be the forms adopted and whatever we say about sovereignty, will and must depend upon the good will of the people of that island. They cannot be of use to us unless we have that good will. The mere assertion of sovereignty gives of itself no security; in fact, there may be circumstances in which it actually diminishes security. The United States has the use of bases in Great Britain; I am far from sure whether the United States would be more certain of being able to use the facilities of those bases if she insisted that they should be under United States sovereignty.
We have to divest ourselves of the notion that sovereignty in itself confers any advantages or gives any security which does not rest upon the real circumstances in the places concerned. Sovereignty in itself is a mere form. The realities within it are the will of the people and the power of the sovereign."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th March, 1959; Vol. 602, c. 697.]
I do not see the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West present tonight, but when I came to make my winding up speech on that occasion, I picked out that passage together with the maiden speech by the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) and the speech by the noble Lord the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton), who also is not here tonight, because all of them expressed their doubts on the question of sovereignty and the effectiveness of British control unless there were two conditions—and these are the two things which will mean whether these bases are valuable: a friendly people and a stable government.
To produce the map, as the Minister of Defence has done for us, showing how small the areas are makes it quite clear that the question of sovereignty is a secondary question. If we have a friendly people and a stable government, our bases there, if we need them, are secure. This is the most important lesson that, I hope, we have all learned from what has taken place over the last few months.
I ask the Foreign Secretary this question. In the light of the circumstances in which the Agreements were signed at Zurich and at Lancaster House, does he think that there is a misunderstanding now between the Greeks and the Turks, on the one hand, and the British Government, on the other hand, about the extent of these bases? This viewpoint was put forward by the hon. Member for The

Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) and by other hon. Members. I do not know the answer. Looking back, I well remember the exhaustion in which the Agreements were initialled. I well remember the circumstances in which they came to be signed and I would say that when one looks at the terminology used in them, they are certainly capable of misunderstanding.
I do not know the view of the Foreign Secretary, but if it were the case that the differences between us, which, as the Minister of Defence has said, relate mainly to the size of the bases, were the result of misunderstanding, I say to the Foreign Secretary and to the Government as a whole that they had no right—indeed, they were wrong—to say yesterday that they were putting forward Her Majesty's Government's final position. To say that we are putting forward our final position if we are in a position in which there may be the possibility of misunderstanding seems to me to be precipitating trouble. We would be quite irresponsible so to do.
It may be that the Foreign Secretary—I would like him to tell the House—has reached the conclusion that he can Ito longer negotiate with Archbishop Makarios because there is no limit to the concessions. This point has been put forward. It was put forward, as I said at Question Time this afternoon, by Lord Harding and by the former Colonial Secretary in 1956 or 1957 just before the Archbishop was deported. They said that there were only three points between us. All these three points, they said, would have been susceptible of negotiation. But they said that if we had given way on this the Archbishop would only have raised further points, and they said, "Because we knew he proposed to raise further points, we decided that the only thing to do was to deport him to the Seychelles and to clear up the situation ourselves." I am within the recollection of all hon. Members and all those who followed the debate.
Are we in this position again tonight? Are the Government saying that, no matter what we may concede on the bases, the Archbishop will always come forward with further demands until in the end, although the bases are not very much use now, they will be completely


useless to us? If they are saying that, we are at the most critical turning point in the history of our relationships with this island, because there is no hope. As the hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) said, in these circumstances we had better reconcile ourselves to a permanent period of colonial sovereignty in which we take responsibility. We in fact have to pour troops into the island. If we try to govern it against the will of the people, as we saw last time, the island will become useless when we want to use it as a base.

Sir G. Nicholson: After all, they have certain institutions. It would not be a return to old-fashioned colonial rule. If there is a period of waiting in the hope of a dètente it will give the Cypriots plenty of opportunity of learning to govern themselves.

Mr. Callaghan: I will say to the hon. Gentleman that he did sit through all our last debates. Does he really believe that the Cypriot people, who have been brought up to within one month of independence, are now likely to say, "Very well. We will accept this philosophical view from Farnham. We shall sit back and learn to govern ourselves". There are political realities about this. I do not believe that anyone thinks that we could govern Cyprus with the consent of the people from now on.
I want to remind the House, because these issues are of the gravest importance, that there was a time during the Suez troubles when we could not use the troops in the island for the purposes for which we wanted to use them because they were engaged in trying to clear up the guerrilla activity and to secure the arrest of General Grivas. We had thousands of troops locked up for this purpose. If the Foreign Secretary has reached this conclusion, I beg him to say so to the House, because we should then need to reconsider the whole of our policy and the British people would want to know to where we were being led, but I still hope that, in fact, this is a misunderstanding.
Having watched the Archbishop at work over the last five or six years, I am sure that he is determined to get the last possible concession he can out of the Foreign Secretary, but if there is still this possibility I say to the Foreign Secretary that he should not have

allowed a communiqué to go out saying, "This is the Government's final position". It makes it very difficult indeed, when there is rising tension in the island, to take up without loss of face some other attitude. I begin to wonder how much of this is face and whether, with common sense on both sides and starting again, it would not have been possible for both sides to reach an accommodation.
I do not wish, and I hope that I have not done so, to take up a position that would make it difficult for the Foreign Secretary to answer this debate. I cannot say to him that we are satisfied with the course of these negotiations. We are not. He has in fact got himself into a position where Dr. Kutchuk and Archbishop Makarios apparently feel that the British Government have mishandled them. I think the House is entitled to know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman has now looked up the point which he had not seen this afternoon about Dr. Kutchuk's statement. This matter is important, because the suggestion has been made in one or two quarters, indeed by the Foreign Secretary himself, that there may be rising tension between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. Let us hope that that is not true, but yesterday that did not seem to be the attitude of Dr. Kutchuk.
Dr. Kutchuk proposed to act as mediator and he put forward compromise suggestions. Archbishop Makarios did not object to them, but the British side did not seem to be in favour of them. Then we issued a communiqué. I hope that the Greeks and the Turks stick together, because if they fall apart or if some Machiavelli forces them apart, the communal bloodshed would be of the greatest consequence.
We do not propose to vote tonight. We want to see how the Government continue to handle this matter. I believe that it would be wrong at this present stage to vote. It is right, as I said at the beginning, to probe the Government's intentions and views much more than we have done so far. I think that the debate has done that, but we will reserve the right to return to this matter because we are determined, if we can possibly help it, that we shall not allow the Government to get themselves into a cleft stick where, for reasons of prestige or of face or for whatever reason, they


have to come to the House and say, "Negotiations have broken down and Cyprus remains a Colony", and we have to continue with the kind of consequences that we endured between 1956 and 1959.
I do not believe that that is the Foreign Secretary's intention. I am sure that he would not want to do that. Our job is to see that he does not fall into it by inadvertence, and we shall continue to keep a searching eye on the Government in this matter.

9.42 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): This has been a remarkable debate and I have heard every word said in it. If feelings have been expressed by many speakers and widely different points of view very moderately put forward, I assure the House that I am very conscious of my responsibilty in this matter and of the dangers in failure to reach agreement about the future of Cyprus.
I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Emery) on his excellent maiden speech. As was pointed out by the hon. Member who congratulated him, it must have been prepared at very short notice. I think that he acquitted himself in an excellent manner and I am sure that we shall all want to listen to him many times again.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney), as one expects from him, made a very robust speech with considerable common sense behind it, and that was endorsed by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson). But I do not altogether agree that this agreement would be valueless. There is a military value in having these bases in Cyprus, and we require to have them in order to discharge our international responsibilities. That is our view, and I gather that is the view of many hon. and right hon. Members opposite as well, though not of all.
The hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) asked a question about the provisions for administration in the sovereign areas. He said that we were seeking to put in a quite unreasonable condition in saying that the delegation of this power must be subject to our military and security requirement. That requirement was always

accepted by Archbishop Makarios when we were discussing this matter. He always said that he understood that of course our military security requirements must be overriding in the matter. Therefore, this is not because of any evil machinations on the part of the Government.

Mr. K. Robinson: Is the Foreign Secretary trying to say that Archbishop Makarios has gone back on the Agreement or that the report in The Times today is inaccurate?

Mr. Lloyd: I am saying that that was specifically clear and accepted by the Archbishop.
As to the size of the area, a suggestion was put forward that we had had second thoughts. I say again on that matter that it was perfectly clear at the time we entered into the London Agreement that we were considering not base installations but base areas. If hon. Members will look at the wording of the Agreement they will see that we say that
… subject to the acceptance of their requirements as set out … below …
Her Majesty's Government agreed to cede sovereignty over the bulk of the island of Cyprus. It was quite clearly understood that these were our requirements and they were generally defined in terms of the areas mentioned—seven villages, three in one area and four in the other. Indeed, during the discussions, the Archbishop frequently has said that it is for the British to define their military requirements. There is no difficulty about the military requirements. The trouble is the method of presenting them.
It has been suggested that we ought to be content with retaining our installations in the individual places named, and that is the reason why we ought to have only twelve square miles. That is really a nonsensical conception. If one looks at the wording of the Agreement one finds these words:
… to enable the two areas as aforesaid to be used effectively as military bases …
It is clear beyond a doubt. There is no other legalistic interpretation of this possible. It is absolutely clear that we are talking of areas to be used as military bases.
It is an interesting fact that when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation was in Cyprus last April, when he


was Minister of Defence, he was shown certain maps by Archbishop Makarios indicating an area of thirty-six square miles. The Archbishop himself indicated that the areas might well be larger. What he was chiefly concerned with was the number of Cypriots within them, and it was for that reason we went to the absolute limit in getting down the number of Cypriots in these base areas to under 1,000. We had been negotiating for some ten months on this matter and, as I have said, I believe the figure of 16,000 was perfectly well understood at the time. Yet we managed to get that down to less than 1,000. We have done everything we can within the sovereign areas to give the Cypriots free access for agricultural cultivation and for their everyday economic life.
The issue of sovereignty has been raised again. Earlier today I said what our position was with regard to that. I have given the reason why it seems to me that sovereignty is important, and it is the basis of the agreement. It was accepted by everybody who made the original Agreement that we should have sovereign areas. It is true that there may be an argument about size, but the principle that we should have sovereign areas has never been disputed by the Archbishop. I would remind the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) of what was said on 19th March, 1959. In that debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd), the then Colonial Secretary, said on the question of sovereignty:
This was never questioned in the Paris or Zurich talks between the Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers. Nor was it ever questioned in any of the talks which I and my colleagues had"—
Then the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East intervened:
It has never been questioned."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 19th March, 1959; Vol. 602, c. 644]
Therefore the position of these being sovereign areas has, I venture to suggest, never been questioned. The argument is the size and not the principle of sovereignty.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras, North said in the course of his speech that we had issued an ultimatum. The Archbishop said that he would only accept areas 6 miles by

6 miles. Is not that an ultimatum? [An HON. MEMBER: "He did not break off negotiations."] He said that was his final position. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, indeed 6 miles by 6 miles; he would never accept anything else. Why is not that an ultimatum?
The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) talked about the timing. He said he could not understand why it was that the interval between the agreement and the passing of the Bill was rather different in January and February from what it was in March. I take my orders on these matters from those who have to judge the speed with which business will go through the House, having regard to the quantity of financial business in particular, for which time has to be found. The view taken was that if we were to get the Bill through, and adequately discussed both here and in another place by the date in question, we had to have an agreement by last weekend. That is a matter not of practical manœuvre in the negotiations but purely a matter of Parliamentary business. I noted what the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said about the willingness of the Opposition, if we can get agreement, to facilitate the passage of a Bill. That is an important statement and one of which advantage may possibly be taken if we can get agreement.

Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Before the Foreign Secretary leaves that point, would he say what is the present position; whether there is now a time limit or whether we are no longer talking in terms of a fixed date?

Mr. Lloyd: At one time in the discussions we pointed out that if the date of 19th March slipped, because of the Easter Recess, 19th May was the next date. The hon. Gentleman with his knowledge of history knows that that is not a very suitable date. That is why we have left the question of another date in abeyance.
One of the difficulties in the negotiations has been the feeling that we are coming up against the time when somebody has to say "Yes" or "No." Therefore, after two attempts to work to a fixed date, we are wiser now not to be precise about the date.
The hon. Member suggested that I had done a disservice by mentioning the


possibility of trouble between the communities on the island. We cannot disinterest ourselves in what happens in the internal affairs of the Republic of Cyprus because under the terms of the Treaty of Guarantee we guarantee not only the independence, territorial integrity and security of the island, but the Constitution. That was the essence of this strange Agreement which was almost miraculously reached. There are five elements in this: Her Majesty's Government, the Greek and Turkish Governments, and the two Cypriot communities. Agreement was possible only on the basis that the three foreign countries guaranteed not only the island but also the Constitution, so that there should be a real feeling of security in a situation where one knows from experience what trouble there can be.
I was not in the least meaning to be menacing or inciting people to do what I think we would all accept to be absolute disaster. I was stating a fact, that because of the terms of the Treaty of Guarantee we cannot dissociate ourselves from what happens within the Republic of Cyprus. That does not mean interfering in internal affairs, but we have a responsibility.
Several hon. Members referred to the point that the facilities are no use at all. I cannot call him my hon. Friend after the discussion about his political beliefs, but the reactionary hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) endorsed his hon. Friend the Member for Swindon in saying that the facilities were no use at all. People who say that the facilities are no use at all are right in saying, "What is the point of going on with negotiations? Drop them and clear out of the island", but that is not the position of the majority of right hon. and hon. Members on the other side of the House.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: They will be.

Mr. Lloyd: One never knows. Some slopes are very slippery and one does not know where they will end up.
The Turkish and Greek Governments want us to stay and have bases in Cyprus. They attach great importance to that, and I believe that the Cypriots themselves will feel more secure if we remain on the island. I therefore come

back again to the point I have made, that there is military value in these bases from the point of view of our international obligations. There is also great value for the future peace and security of the people of Cyprus. I will not deal with the other points in the hon. Gentleman's speech. I think that tonight he was getting in a little bit of tomorrow's speech when we are to have a foreign affairs debate about disarmament and the cold war.
The House is principally interested in what the position is now and what it will do. The question was put by one hon. Member who asked, "Is there a lull or a breakdown?" I do not consider that there has been a breakdown in negotiations. As I said, if we were to maintain the programme for 19th March certain decisions had to be taken, but I do not accept that there has been a breakdown in the negotiations.
Our future policy is based on the London and Zurich Agreements. We recognise the tremendous difference they made to feelings between Greeks and Turks, the prospects of peace or war in the island, and the prospects of civil war in Cyprus. Our policy remains firmly based on those Agreements. We are prepared to continue to discuss any settlement which is in conformity with them.
I should like to repudiate the unfair attack made on my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies who has worked very hard to try and make a success of the negotiations.

Mr. Callaghan: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that what he has just said clashes with the official communiqué, which says:
Mr. Amery explained Her Majesty's Government's final position"?
If the position is final, what further negotiations can take place, unless there are to be concessions only from the other side?

Mr. Lloyd: There must be finality at some time if we are ever to achieve a successful negotiation, but I will deal with that point in a moment.
The present position is that the Governor, who has played a considerable part in these negotiations, is in the island and will discuss the situation with the Cypriot leaders, and I shall discuss


the matter with my Greek and Turkish colleagues—not personally, but by telegraph. In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) I can say that we shall continue to keep in close contact with Dr. Kutchuk and use his services in any way possible.
I was asked if I would give a message to the people of Cyprus. The message, which I hope the whole House will endorse, is that we want their good will and we want a happy relationship with them in future, to our mutual benefit. We are convinced that if we can get a workable agreement within the framework of the London and Zurich Agreements, it will be to their benefit and it will be to our benefit.
We will continue patiently to seek agreement, but they must understand that in trying to reach agreement, there must come a time when there must be some finality in the position of one side or another. We have been trying for nine months to get agreement about the size of the areas and certain other points, but on all these matters there must be some finality. As I indicated earlier in answer to questions, a number of issues appear to have come up again. I was asked whether my interpretation of what

the Archbishop said during the conversations appeared to have been repudiated by what took place in Cyprus yesterday. It looks as though that issue has come to the surface again. In all these matters, there must be some finality and, so far as 19th March was concerned, there had to be finality about this last weekend.
We are prepared to go on patiently working to get agreement, but there must be a settlement within the framework of the London and Zurich Agreements, as I have indicated. I believe that the Archbishop and those who heard it accepted the position, as the case was put by the Minister of Defence today. There is no room for give in regard to the size of the areas hut, as I say, we have to continue to discuss and try to reach an agreement within the framework of the London and Zurich Agreements and we are prepared to discuss any settlement which is in conformity with those Agreements. In that spirit, we shall try to get agreement.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Member for Leeds. East (Mr. Healey) wish to withdraw his Motion?

Mr. Healey: Yes, Sir. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — MENTAL HEALTH (SCOTLAND) BILL

Postponed Proceeding on Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, resumed.

Question again proposed.

9.58 p.m.

Mr. Ross: I think it more than a little hard, in view of all that has happened—we lost about an hour for this debate after half-past three, and now three hours have been taken for the debate on Cyprus—to be asked, as I was by one hon. Member representing an English constituency, "How long are you Scots going to keep us tonight?"
We are dealing with what the Government have described as the most important Scottish Measure in this Parliament. Certainly regarding the subject of mental health, one must go back to the year 1913 to find a parallel in importance. I think I speak far everyone in the House when I assure the Secretary of State for Scotland that we welcome the Bill, the provisions of which are the outcome of studies by expert committees which have laboured long on this question and taken into consideration not only the problems in Scotland but related legislation already passed for England and Wales. Our thanks are due to those committees.
Undoubtedly we shall express differences of opinion regarding certain problems, and I am sure that the committees will appreciate that it is mutual concern being expressed in a different way regarding the problems which worry us all. It is a difficult Bill. It could not be anything but a difficult Bill technically, because we wish to make absolutely certain about this question, not only in connection with the admission, but the detention and continued detention of persons in metal hospitals or homes, people whom we are depriving of their liberty or people who are giving up their liberty in certain respects. In making sure about this Measure, in assuring the public that what we are doing is right and assuring the people who may be treated in such hospitals that what we are doing is right, it is inevitable that we have Clauses which are technically difficult and complex, and, indeed, which may be repetitive, as I have noted when going through the Bill.
I wish to congratulate the Secretary of State for Scotland—I am sure that shakes the right hon. Gentleman—on giving us a clear and lucid explanation of the Bill. He was coherent and very skilful. I began to wonder whether we were on Third Reading and that he was explaining what was in the Bill, with certain omissions, of course. I should have thought that during the Second Reading debate the right hon. Gentleman might have spread himself a bit and given a little more of the background to the problem; a greater indication of how the Government saw the whole question of mental health, not purely in relation to the provisions necessary for administration, quite apart from Part II referring to the powers of local authorities, because in that respect it is an enabling Bill, although it is not all new. I should have thought he would have given an indication of what was the programme of the Government in order to make this thing live. But the right hon. Gentleman skated skilfully right through the Bill. He avoided the bumpy bits of Clause 6, and, my goodness, how bumpy it is. There is this whole framework of over 102 Clauses dealing with the question of mental health, and the only definition we get is
In this Act 'mental disorder' means mental illness or mental deficiency however caused or manifested
Well, well! Yet on that rests everything, such as the provision of hospitals and the depriving of nearly 2,000 people of their liberty every year by certification. The right hon. Gentleman could have explained why he did not go further in relation to the definition and why he limited it to two categories. It may be that he was following the English line. We are entitled to point out that the whole history in Scotland is different in respect of this, and I think we ought to have been given a better explanation.
The right hon. Gentleman skated speedily over Part II relating to the local authorities. I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) pointed the direction of our darts in indicating that this could mean a great improvement, or it could mean nothing. That will depend entirely on how the local authorities accept the challenge of the enabling powers which the Minister has given them. The right hon. Gentleman knows,


in fact his expert committee has already told him, that what will determine their ability to act will be the availability of resources. I am, indeed, sorry that he did not explain that a little more. Then there are the important questions in relation to the admission and detention. It may well be that the Bill was so large that the Secretary of State spread himself too thinly over it. I think that he could have given us some indication of what will be the effect of this on the mental hospitals in Scotland. We hope that it will have considerable effect. But that will affect the present resources, and what concerns me is whether those resources will be able to meet the modern challenge that is enshrined in this legislation.
I wish that he had dealt with the question of voluntary patients a little more fully. When I went through the Bill and came to the miscellaneous provisions, I thought that they were not terribly important—just miscellaneous provisions—but Clause 100, under the heading "Miscellaneous Provisions", states:
Section thirty-four of this Act shall apply in relation to any patient who is receiving treatment for mental disorder in a hospital, having been admitted for that purpose but not being liable to be detained therein, as it applies in relation to a patient detained in a hospital under Part IV of this Act.
That means that the application is exactly the same for a voluntary patient under Clause 34 which deals with the power to withhold correspondence. I think that the right hon. Gentleman could have explained that a little more. This is quite a controversial point. Is he aware that a person who is in that hospital is entitled to stay for a night and walk out the next day? Indeed, to my way of thinking, he can walk down to the post office, collect any mail posted to him there and go back to the hospital to read it. In the hospital itself he is denied, in the same way as a certified patient, the right to receive correspondence.
It would be interesting, too, to have had a few remarks on Clause 102, in view of the definition, or lack of definition, of mental disorder, whereby a constable or some such authority can deprive of his liberty for seventy-two hours in a mental hospital anyone he finds wandering about and whom he thinks is in need of such care.
The Bill is packed full of human interest. That is why I think that we have to be so terribly careful about it. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman spoke as he did about the support which he hoped would be provided in Committee and that he would be prepared to look at Amendments. I hope that he will look not just at technical Amendments, but Amendments of substance in relation to the admission, detention and treatment of patients.
Mental illness—I think that the country is at last facing it—is one of the major causes of human suffering as well as of economic loss. It has the power to disrupt the orderly life of the family probably more than ordinary physical illness and it affects the orderly life of the community as well. Mental illness and mental deficiency when taken together form a force of unique significance. It strikes at all levels and all sections of the community. When we appreciate that the highest rate for suicides is in one of our university towns and is nine times that of a similarly large group of the population, we appreciate how grievous this question of mental illness can be. When we look at the statistics in relation to Scotland at present we have to draw some grim lessons.
More than one hon. Member has remarked on the astounding growth—which we can commend—of voluntary patients and the turnover in hospitals. The last available statistics show that in Scotland in 1958, 11,407 people were admitted to mental hospitals. As many as 8,700 of them entered voluntarily and only 2,622 were certified.
I have heard people talk about the advance that seems to be indicated by this change-over of patients. The assumption was, in an otherwise excellent maiden speech, on which I want to congratulate him, by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), that everyone who goes out is cured. I wish that were true. Unfortunately, I think that within these figures we have the same person appearing more than once. There is a coming and going in many cases. We tend to over-emphasise the question of voluntary patients and the turnover and to forget that in Scottish mental hospitals at any time during the year 75 per cent. of the patients are not voluntary patients


and that the bulk of them have been there not for two or three months, but for years.
There is the problem of the short-stay voluntary patient and the short-stay certifield patient. Then there is the problem of the continuing lag of the long-term patient to whom most of the time of the staff has to be devoted. When we come to patients in residence, we find that 20,671 were certified and of those discharged last year—9,428–7,616 were voluntary and 1,812 were certified. We find with this development of the voluntary patient that we still have the certified cases remaining more or less on the same level and the discharges more or less the same. It would be wrong to lead anyone to think that we have found the cure. What is outstanding and from what lessons must be drawn is that a great many people who go in for voluntary treatment can be cured if they go in at the right time and there certainly is an amelioration of their condition.
That points to the fact that in our administration under this Bill and whatever services are set up, we want much earlier diagnosis of mental illness and treatment of mental illness. In that way probably we shall get a larger percentage of cures. It also points out, since we have the greater number of people leaving mental hospitals every year, that in order to prevent a recurrence we must have some form of after-care. Have we got it at present? I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that it is not there. We already have powers and this is where we must not blind ourselves with the provisions of this Bill. If hon. Members turn to Section 27 of the 1947 Act they will read:
A local health authority may with the approval of the Secretary of State, and to such extent as the Secretary of State may direct shall, make arrangements for the purpose of the prevention of illness, the care of persons suffering from illness or mental deficiency, or the aftercare of such persons …
A circular was sent out by the Department of Health which read as follows:
Section 27 of the 1947 Act also gives local health authorities a wide general power, applicable in the mental health field as elsewhere, to make arrangements for the purpose of the prevention of illness,
—they have never done it—
the care of persons suffering from illness or mental deficiency

—the provision has been meagre—
or the aftercare of such persons.
—and I think that that has been even less.
Here we have a duplication of the power within this Bill. Let us not consider ourselves satisfied that it necessarily means that something will be done. The power existed twelve years ago. One of the points made by the Sub-Committee considering mental deficiency was that we must take great care that in increasing our ascertainment of the problem we back it up with the resources to deal with the problem, because if we are limited to our existing resources and we ascertain a greater number of cases, it means that there will be less treatment than there is at present.
I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) raised the question of mental deficiency. I recognise that 40,000 are suffering from mental deficiency in Scotland, that between 10,000 and 12,000 of them are in need of institutional care and that we have institutions available to take only about 5,000, or half of them. I know that our present building is concentrated on meeting this problem, but we must face the fact that at the moment we are stretching our resources to the limit. I said that there were nearly 21,000 patients in mental hospitals, and the Report of the Department of Health almost exactly a year ago pointed out that we have beds in our mental hospitals for 21,000 people. But here we have this lag in relation to institutional treatment for mental deficiency.
It is not good enough merely to talk about this. The Secretary of State failed to give an indication of his programme and how he will help the local authorities with this immense problem. The failure of local authorities to meet it has not been a failure of will. They have been held back, as in many other projects, by lack of capital development. The Secretary of State is the man who has held them back. He had power under the 1947 provisions to compel them to do things.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North was right to point out that the power in the Bill is purely permissive and that if the Government and the country seriously meant it, we should insist on the Government doing


these things. Let us make these responsibilities mandatory.
This is the great weakness of the Bill. What are we doing about voluntary patients? We are making it easier to get them into a mental hospital without the formalities. I disagree profoundly with the instance which the Secretary of State gave. He talked about old people who could not write. In order to have them enter these hospitals they have to be certified. Surely this is one of the things to which we object. The old people should not be in these hospitals at all. The Secretary of State said it would be much better if we got rid of the formalities of signing forms. But where will this lead? I hope that it will lead to a greater number of people submitting themselves voluntarily for treatment in our mental hospitals. Have we the hospitals, the beds, the doctors or the equipment?
They are doing wonderful things in mental hospitals, certainly in Ayrshire. I am very glad that the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) remembered the Ailsa Hospital in Ayrshire. An astounding transformation has come over that place since the days of old. I can remember it very well. My father used to be a governor of the hospital in the bad old days. Today it is an amazing place. People come from all over Europe to see it. They even come from the other side of the Atlantic.
We have made changes and introduced new methods which go well beyond the treatment of voluntary patients. The changes made in the treatment of long-staying patients must be seen to be believed. I refer to such measures as providing them with work and letting them go out to farms to do some work. A completely new spirit has been effected in relation to these people, which is the hardest thing to achieve in relation to people who have been tied to a mental hospital for years. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will take steps to provide regional hospital boards and local authorities with the necessary finance to enable them to deal properly with these problems.
I want to deal specifically with only one problem. I shall then end, because I am discarding most of my very learned and erudite speech. I will leave my

hon. Friend to quote suitably from the World Health Organisation Expert Committee on Mental Health. I want to deal with the proposal to transfer to local health authorities junior occupational centres presently administered by local education authorities. There has been a certain measure of confusion about this. As I read Clause 12, there can be no confusion at all. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North for drawing my attention to this. There is not very much in education that escapes her notice. Clause 12 (1) says specifically:
It shall be the duty of the local health authority to provide or secure the provision of suitable training and occupation for—
(a) persons under the age of sixteen who have been reported by the education authority under section fifty-six of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1946, as having been found unsuitable for education or training in a special school.
The important words are "in a special school".
Local authorities have set up special schools. I have come across cases in my own constituency and in my own town of children who were not acceptable in these special schools. It started with dedicated and devoted parents who were determined to have some form of training for their children. They started it on their own—not just in Ayrshire, but in many places elsewhere. Eventually the local authority took the work over for them, and we have seen the development of junior occupational centres being administered under local education authorities. These are not special schools.

Mr. Millan: According to the Education (Scotland) Act, 1946, the words "special school" include by definition the term "occupation centre". There does seem to be some confusion.

Mr. Ross: The confusion was equally in evidence in the committee which discussed this. The committee discussed it in terms of transferring this from the education authority to the health authority. The pros and cons in relation to it have been going on for a long time.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith) indicated dissent.

Mr. Ross: It is all very well for the Joint Under-Secretary to shake his head. A scheme was going on for the proper training of staff for these centres, and that was stopped. As far as I know, it is not going on now. It was stopped because of doubt about whether the work would come under the Health Department or the Education Department.
I shall certainly continue my argument on the basis that these occupational centres should continue under the local education authorities. That is justified from the point of view of the area alone. Taking Ayrshire as an instance, is it not better that this should be dealt with by the education area, which is wider, than by three separate authorities—the local health authorities in Ayr, in Kilmarnock and in the county?
When we appreciate that these local health authorities have already had statutory responsibility for those over the age of 16 and have done little or nothing—the figure quoted for the whole of Scotland showed that 339 were being catered for in this way—it does not exactly give one any feelings of confidence that we shall get the local health authority measuring up to the demand that has been made by the parents and met by the local education authority. I sincerely hope that in Committee we shall get complete confirmation that the responsibility will continue to be with local education authorities.
The local health authorities have not the experience and the trained staff for the work. They have not got the experience of the work—they have not done it—and training is educational. The staffs have already been guided and aided by teachers and teacher-training colleges, and where there is training of any kind the competent authority is the education authority.
It would be wrong to cut the numbers of these children presently under the ægis of education authorities, and say that they would not benefit from educational training. That would be a disservice to the parents and to the teachers. It would most certainly be a disservice to the children. The medical and social element does, of course, enter into consideration, but it is outweighed by the educational aspect of these occupational centres. Sensory and

physical training, handwork, the appreciation of art and the like all add up to educational training, and they must all continue to be the responsibility of local education authorities.
There is no doubt that the danger feared by parents of handicapped children is that far too many of these grades will be put in one establishment. When too many grades are mixed, the training comes to a standstill. Under the present schemes—I wish there were more, but I believe that there are 49 throughout the country—the children feel that they are at school just like their brothers and sisters, who are at the ordinary schools. Psychologically, that is very important for both the children and the parents, and I hope that we do nothing by this Bill to undermine what has been done.
The service is new—it has been running for only a few years—but, thanks to the work of the parents and the teachers, it is now established and developed, and it would be wrong to disrupt it. The children have been upgraded from these occupational centres into the special schools. It is true that they have been downgraded, too, but without the kind of upset that we shall get if it is a case of going from one authority to another.
I would like the Secretary of State to tell us whether it is true that no Scottish occupational centre was visited by the Committee before the recommendation was made. If that is true, it is rather serious, but it has been pointed out to me and, I believe, to the right hon. Gentleman, in the form of a memorandum from the association of the parents interested in the work. First-hand knowledge of the achievements should have been sought by the Committee before the recommendation was made, and the opinions and experience of the parents themselves considered. I hope it was not done in order to achieve uniformity with what is happening in England and Wales. Let us remember what the Committee said:
We approached the problem with which we now deal with the wish, firstly, that Scottish law and practice should be as similar as possible to the law and practice in England and, secondly, that the best traditional features of Scottish law and practice should be preserved.


These two objectives proved to be not entirely compatible, and as our deliberations progressed we formed the view that certain features of the law in Scotland were—for Scotland—more satisfactory than their English equivalents, and that we were not justified in seeking uniformity by sacrificing provisions which have worked well in Scotland and in which the public have confidence.
The people most concerned in relation to the junior occupation centres are the parents of these children. They have confidence in these centres. The

Committee itself said that they are working well, and I wonder that the Committee made the recommendation that it did. I hope the Joint Under-Secretary will give us the assurance that, if it is not crystal clear in the Bill, he will make it clear that these centres have got to remain under the education authority. On the whole, I welcome the Bill and I look forward to the exchanges in Committee.

10.32 p.m.

Commander C. E. M. Donaldson: Early this afternoon, because of a change in the business of the House, it was thought that perhaps this Bill might pass rather quickly through its Second Reading stage and thereafter in due course reach its Committee stage, there to be considered in more detail. I recall when, having sat here for two or three hours earlier this evening, the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said that this might be a shorter debate than had originally been anticipated. But the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) then said something and went out of the Chamber to ascertain how matters stood. It was obvious, therefore, to me, as it was perhaps to other Members, that whatever had been suggested for the expedition of the Second Reading, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock had something to say and wished to say it in considerable detail.

Miss Herbison: There were no arrangements whatever between the Front and back benches to expedite the Second Reading of this Bill. I was considering some of my own hon. Friends who might wish to get into the debate and might have transport difficulties.

Commander Donaldson: I accept what has been said by the hon. Lady—or perhaps I may be allowed to say "the hon. and charming lady". I heard what she said, and I appreciate the inference. She made it clear that she did not wish to inhibit the debate, but that some of her hon. Friends might wish to speak, and by inference she said she hoped that others would not speak at too great length and deprive her hon. Friends of an opportunity to contribute to the debate, in view of the time limit.
The point I am trying to make, in following the hon. Member for Kilmarnock, is that there have been occasions when the hon. Gentleman, who is gifted to speak in a manner in which I shall never be, has carried a debate for about 6½ hours, as he did one night two or three years ago in the Committee stage of a Scottish Bill. He has the ability to understand Bills, and I am sure that whatever might be said on the Front Bench, he was determined to speak at some considerable length. In any case, he has done so.
I should have liked to follow the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton). That may seem odd to some hon. Members, because he and I in general principle seldom agree. But he spoke with a human note in a speech which impressed me very much, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart). They followed my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), who had made his maiden speech.
The Bill is one which ought to be, and I think will be, in general terms a non-controversial Bill at this stage, in Committee, on Report or on Third Reading. As time is now a little more free to us, I should like to add to the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West. A maiden speech is a difficult speech, but he made it, and he made it in the context of human relationships. My point is that human relationships are really the basis of the Bill, and they will be the basis of the consideration when we come to the more controversial stage, the Committee stage.
I have had, as other hon. Members have, instances of the difficulties in family life resulting from, whether it be in childhood or in adult life, mental illness and other matters which form the basis of the Bill. I could, but will not, give a number of illustrations. I have had a number in my constituency, and in some ways they work one against another. When in this House we consider these matters of human relationships in relation to mental illness and mental disability, we should think of them in human terms.
In the past I have been in contact with constituents of mine who had a child in the Gogoburn Hospital, Edinburgh. The child, by the process of the educational ideas and modern thought of those in charge, reached a stage where it was, in their opinion, ready to return to its parents. The tragedy of this case was that the child was adopted. The couple who adopted it were not able to have children of their own, and they deeply and sincerely and in love wanted the child returned to their home. For a time it was not possible for the child to


return. However, after inquiry and suggestion and, perhaps, a little argument and pressure, the child was returned, and the joy the household was great. The child, which I have seen, is now evolving into a useful personality in the community in which it lives.
I have seen the converse of that in a family of another of my burghs. The family had five children. The third child was a mental defective, was the subject of cerebral palsy and was afflicted with epilepsy at the same time. The hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) will appreciate the tragedy of the case from his medical knwoledge. For five years the mother never left the door of her house to go anywhere, and by reason of his work her husband was away most of the time. At the end of that time, she asked, in desperation, whether something could be done, and the child was removed to the home for epileptic children at Bridge-of-Weir. The tragic thing was that, after I had had a letter saying what a relief it was to the other children, the mother and the father, about six weeks later the child was returned, the hospital stating that it could not control it. What did the mother think?—"If the hospital cannot control the child, how are we expected to control it, and what about its brothers and sisters?" That was a tragedy. However, by the efforts of the predecessor of the present Under-Secretary of State some quick action was taken. That child was admitted to the Gogoburn Hospital in Edinburgh and is now with others of the same mental capacity. It is becoming a happy child and the parents are rid of that terrible fear and difficulty, and its brothers and sisters are happy little boys and girls because the child has been removed. That is the sort of remedial treatment which would unite the House in relation to the Bill although we may disagree on some of its contents in Committee.
I would like to take the matter a little further, and apart from these individual cases. It so happens that in the whole of Scotland there is one hospital—we are dropping the term "mental hospital"—that has open doors. It is in my constituency. The medical superintendent is a man whom I have come to understand after ten

years of knowing him and visiting the hospital.
This institution accepts all types of mental illness cases—schizophrenics, mental depressives and paranoics—and it has no locked doors. I have pleasure in visiting the hospital and my agent is even more happy because he knows that when I go into the hospital I shall be able to come out again because the doors are unlocked. The hospital caters for some 460 people of all classes of mental illness. It is situated adjacent to the Burgh of Melrose. The people of Melrose had to accept the proposition of having within their compass and in their orbit a hospital with open doors catering for various types of mental illness. They accepted it. The fact is that there has never been any trouble or difficulty. There have been instances of patients wandering out of the hospital, but never any trouble.
I do not believe that Dr. Bell, the medical superintendent of the hospital, has yet received the praise due to him. I have followed his work and his career. He is known throughout the world—not just in Scotland—as a man with a new idea who has kept it going without difficulty for many years. He went recently to America to lecture on his system. People come from New Zealand, Switzerland and other countries to study the methods used in this hospital which, as I have said, happens to be in my constituency.
It is wonderful to think that although when we come to the Committee stage of the Bill we may differ on the minutia of certain parts of it, to which no doubt my hon. Friend will refer when he winds up the debate tonight, we all in principle accept the Bill. I do not think that we shall divide on ifs Second Reading. We may argue the difficult cases, the finances or whatever we may, but I believe that all of us in the House are interested in the very difficult cases of mental illness of whatever form, starting from the youngest children and, as has been said in the debate, ending with those who are committed to these institutions because they are old and are suffering from a mental state which afflicts elderly people.
When in Committee we come to discuss finance and other things I hope that we shall keep in mind the backcloth that


all these cases are cases of human relationships. Young people may be suffering from cerebral palsy and other mental illnesses which afflict the young. They are the responsibility of their parents. But when older people are afflicted with illness of the mind to which the elderly are prone, they are often the responsibility of the younger members of the family, sometimes their daughters and perhaps their grandchildren.
We should approach the Bill in an atmosphere of compassion and understanding. I do not think that there is a Member of the House who has not had knowledge of these cases. I hope that when we come to the Committee stage, whatever the differences may be, the backcloth will be human understanding, the relationship of family with family and individual with individual, and that we shall support the Bill in large measure even though disagreeing, perhaps, in small measure on the intricacies of the debate.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. William Small: One would have expected an adventurous effort in major legislation on mental health in Scotland to do something for the patients, for the mentally ill, but, from a study of the subject matter of the Bill, one finds many cross references to previous legislation and provisions to modernise what is already on the Statute Book, so that it is really more a Statutory Instrument than anything else.
I am particularly concerned with the provisions of the Bill which affect the liberty of the subject. Almost the first words of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum tell us that the Bill
provides that patients may in future be treated in hospitals or nursing homes for mental disorder without any formality.
On a commonsense approach, that does not seem to take into account the fact that, with the advance of senility, in ten years or so, we shall have a growing pro- portion of old people in the population for whom no provision is made by the local authorities under the presently existing restrictions.
The result today is that the only place for those with failing mental powers is the mental hospital. This is something which most of us object to very strongly.

Whether certification is necessary or not, the fact remains that the mental hospital should not be the only place provided by the Government for the old. This is really the central problem, to my lay mind, and I am not altogether without experience, after serving for seven years on committees dealing with mental health.
Further, we are told in the Memorandum that the Bill
provides for registration of private hospitals and residential homes for persons suffering from mental disorder.
In my view, such registration would be desirable, but I wonder whether, after registration, the local authorities, through the medical officers of health, or the new Mental Welfare Board, will be able to watch the standards of treatment and care provided in such private institutions. Will it be within the province of a local medical officer of health to see that standards are maintained within a private hospital, after registration?
I have another question on that matter. If registration is to give the stamp of approval by the Secretary of State or the local authority, will this affect the opportunity of the private institution to obtain drugs via the National Health Service? It is important to know whether the stamp of approval is given at that stage and access to drugs will be provided for in that way I am asking these probing questions so that we may be informed about the actual effect of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) dealt very adequately with the implications of the proposal to give the local health authority a duty to provide suitable training and occupation for mentally defective children. In most local authorities of which I have had experience, there has always been a contest between the health and education departments. On the weight of the evidence, I have come to the conclusion that the duty should be given to the education authority, since it already has most of the other facilities under its control, including the school dental service. This activity should be added, in that sense.
As for people or children unsuitable for education, my experience has taught me that members of hospital managements boards or committees are always


plagued by appeals from parents who cannot get their children into institutions today. There is a contest here, too. I have in mind the position of the doctors and the recommendations they make. There is no reference in the Memorandum to any raising of the status of the doctor through the Diploma in Psychological Medicine.
The Bill provides for detention on the signature of two doctors. When dealing with mentally disordered persons, however, one must be able to be satisfied concerning the qualifications of the doctors. I will quote a practical example. Previously, when a matron was resident in a home without a resident physician, she was in control night and day and was responsible for the classification and grading of all the mentally defective patients. If, however, she decides that two or three are ready to go out into the world and are socially competent, she must consult a general practitioner who lives in the nearby village but who is unfamiliar with the mental state of the patients. Frequently, such cases give rise to dispute and representations are made and there is always a contest whether the matron or the G.P. is better qualified to decide a patient's release.
My main interest is in what happens to a person who comes before the court and is sent to, for example, Barlinnie, where men are certified by the prison doctor as distinct from a general practitioner. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum to the Bill states that there are to be
'State hospitals' for patients who require treatment under conditions of special security.
The existing hospital at Perth is not specifically mentioned, although the State Mental Hospital and the State Institution for Defectives at Carstairs is designated. Is the transfer of Perth Prison to State mental hospital status a change in name only?
The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states that
The Bill provides for the appointment of one or more committees to manage State hospitals.
In Committee, I should like to discuss the appointment of committees for this new task. On the broad issue, there is much in the Bill that is good and real in character concerning the right of appeal by patients. One of the amazing features

is in Clause 34, concerning the correspondence of patients. They may write to their nearest relative, the Lord Advocate, any Member of Parliament, the Mental Welfare Board, any sheriff or sheriff clerk and the board of management of the hospital, but there is no suggestion that they may write to the doctors who recommended their admission to the mental hospital for their assistance to get out.
Always at the back of a patient's mind is the thought of the doctor who sent him to hospital. He has a sensitivity that the doctor should watch his progress and that he should be able in due course to appeal to him when he wants to be discharged. It is usually a general practitioner who introduces these services to parents. These doctors are, however, omitted from the category of people to whom a patient has authority to write.
I anticipate introducing a number of Amendments in Committee to help to strengthen the Bill. I assume that the setting up of committees for the State mental hospitals will be done on a local basis so that the members of a committee will be in close proximity to the hospital for which they are appointed, rather than that the membership of the committees should be distributed over Scotland as a whole. I welcome much that is in the Bill, but I am concerned about the liberty of the individual, and particularly the prison offender.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. William Baxter: I have listened carefully to the speeches that have been made this afternoon. The humanitarian speeches made by hon. Members on the Government benches impressed me greatly, but when they were making those speeches and talking about the great transformation that had taken place in the hospital services, especially in the mental hospitals, they failed to point out that that transformation had been brought about by the National Health Services Act, 1947, and the National Assistance Act, 1948, which gave great powers to local authorities to help in this respect, both of which were passed by a Labour Government.
As one who had the privilege and opportunity of being a member of the board of management of the Larbert


District Hospital Board before the introduction of those two Acts which I have referred, I know of the great problems that confronted the committees which tried to bring about some alteration in the things that had existed for many years. It was only when the Labour Government brought those Acts into being and set up new boards of management and regional hospital boards that this transformation to which hon. Gentlemen opposite have paid glowing tribute came about.
I had the good fortune to be a member of the West of Scotland Regional Hospital Board at its inception, and I can speak of the excellent work that was done by regional hospital boards and the board of management of various hospitals to try to bring mental hospitals to the peak of perfection and give the results which have been so highly praised this afternoon by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
During the recent election not many hon. Gentlemen paid tribute to the work that had been done. They did not then pay the tributes that they have paid this afternoon. On many occasions I have heard hon. Gentlemen speak of the great wastage caused by the National Health Service Act and the National Assistance Act. It is a pity that only on occasions such as this do we hear tributes to the work that was done under those Acts.
I should have thought that when the Secretary of State for Scotland introduced this Bill he would have apologised to the House, and to the people of Scotland, because neither he nor his predecessor tried to do what the Acts to which I have referred gave them power to do. They could have helped considerably by giving local authorities assistance to enable them to bring about a better state of affairs for our mentally sick people.
I listened in vain for the Secretary of State for Scotland to refer to the power that he has for setting up health centres throughout Scotland. Unlike his opposite number in England who has no power to set up health centres, the Secretary of State for Scotland has power to set up health centres in Scotland. Since this power was vested in the Secretary of State for Scotland, three

health centres have been set up in the whole of Scotland to try and combat in some small way the terrible disease of mental health. If such health centres had been built, clinics could have been established for treating the unfortunate people about whom we have heard today.
If the past is a criterion of what is to be done by the right hon. Gentleman in future, then we cannot have any great hopes that the promises of the Bill will be fulfilled. The Bill has not come by chance. It is a natural follow-on to the legislation which I have mentioned. Irrespective of the complexion of the Government of the day, a Bill of this character would have had to be introduced. The great folly of right hon. Gentlemen opposite is that they did not introduce it earlier.
The right hon. Gentleman said that certain powers were to be vested in local authorities, which is true, but those powers already exist. I have been a member of numerous deputations to the right hon. Gentleman asking him to permit the building of health centres by local authorities if the Government were not prepared to undertake the work themselves, But we have had the greatest difficulty in getting such permission and it is only in the last 12 months or so that there has been a relaxation in that attitude.
If the right hon. Gentleman is sincere—and I hope that he will be in future—and if he is to do anything drastic, he will have to encourage and assist local authorities. One tangible way would be by £ s. d. There is no doubt about that. Progressive local authorities wanting to start schemes for this or that find that they will have to increase rates considerably. The Government have said that they will permit local authorities to go ahead with schemes suggested in the Bill, but they have not indicated what money will be available.
With many others, I believe that a grant, not on the present basis, but a special grant for a special purpose, is required. If the right hon. Gentleman is sincere, he should have no hesitation in demanding that the Treasury make available to local authorities a special grant for these purposes.
Stirling County Council recently had plans for going on with occupational schemes for the mentally handicapped.


Lo and behold! A great opportunity came along, an opportunity to acquire a building meeting the requirements of the local authority and originally owned by the county council. That was Camelon Hospital in Falkirk. The regional hospital board had taken over that hospital from the local authority, but then decided that they no longer required the building. It wrote to the health committee of Stirling County Council, of which I have the honour to be chairman, saying that it was prepared to hand over the hospital to the original owners, from whom it had taken without compensation.
We said that we would be delighted, but we were told that we could take back the hospital only if we were prepared to pay the valuation fixed by the district valuer. Is that the way to reap the rewards offered by the Bill? That is the most stupid thing in the world. Here was the county council taking back its own hospital at the district valuer's valuation and yet, if the implications of the Bill are implemented, without that hospital the county council will have to spend public money on a similar building. It means the negation of progress. The Secretary of State tells us that he is prepared to do all that is humanly possible to carry out the implications of this Measure. Let him meet his words with actions. Let him prove his words by giving special grants to local authorities, and giving back to the local authorities the hospitals which are no longer required by the Department of Health or the hospital boards.
Under the provisions of this Bill an interesting new committee is to be formed, the Mental Health Committee. I have no doubt that it will be a valuable body, but only if its members include a proper proportion of elected local authority representatives. I ask the Secretary of State to look at what he has put in the Bill and consider whether he should not make clear that a certain proportion of elected local authority representatives should be appointed to this committee.
If time permitted, I could say something about the great mistake of the National Health Services (Scotland) Act, 1947, in not utilising local authority representatives to the fullest extent in

the administration of that Measure. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should not repeat the mistake made in the past in taking the whole of the hospital and curative services from the local representatives. There will be a great danger if this new committee is deprived of the wisdom of the elected members of local authorities.
Many authorities are dabbling in the question of mental health. I wonder whether the time has arrived to insert a provision in the legislation setting up a committee to co-ordinate all the activities pertaining to mental health. I make that suggestion for the consideration of the Minister.

11.8 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: The hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson) told us that we no longer use the words "mental hospital" in the Bill which he regarded as a sign of progress. It is perfectly true that a name, or a change of name, can represent a form of progress. I am reminded of when I was a member of a parish council which controlled a mental institution and also an institution for those who were physically destitute. These places were known as the "Poors' House". The council decided to call them combination hospitals, and that was regarded as an advance. But the inmates still went on calling them the "Grubber". The real test is whether there is a change in character. Will there be an improvement in the accommodation, in the treatment and in the attitude to the patients?
Surely these are the important things we have to be asking about this Bill? Are these other changes to take place? As my hon. Friend asked, will more money be spent on the hospitals than was spent on the mental institutions? It does not look like it for a reading of the Bill tells us that no further demand will be made on local or central finances. That is rather a brake on the progress which many of us would hope to see taking place as a result of this Bill.
There is another sign, not of progress, but in my view and the view of many on this side of the House, of retrogression. Clause 12 deals with the power to compel attendance at training centres. If a child is unsuitable for


training in a special school, the local authority will have to establish a training centre for that child. We are to certify that child as ineducable. We are to decide that for practically its whole future life that child will remain separated from the rest of its little community. This is one of the causes of bitter grievance which I have discovered time and again in neighbourhoods and in homes.
We are taking a small group of children and separating them from the rest of the child community. We are defining them as a different lot and they become differently regarded. Parents do everything in their power to get friends to believe that their child is no different from other children. Now in the Bill we are to mark that child by taking it away from the educational community and putting it into another environment altogether. I think that is fundamentally wrong. I think it impossible for anyone to examine a child and come to the conclusion that that child is ineducable. No one can say the changes which may occur in the years which lie ahead, yet because of a decision at a particular phase in its life, it is marked for the rest of its earthly sojourn.
The hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles seemed to indicate that there was a large measure of agreement about the Bill and that there was no controversy whatever. I assure him that if the Government are not to have another thought about Clause 12 there will be controversy, bitter controversy. It is already plain that in its general aspect in regard to the mental hospitals and mental illness there has been advance.
Today I looked at the Lunacy Act, 1857. It gives three categories of persons subject to treatment in what used to be called the asylum—the insane person, the idiot and the person of unsound mind. These groups have disappeared and the categories are no longer mentioned. One might call that a sign of progress.
In the 1913 Act there were four categories—idiots, imbeciles, the feeble minded and the morally defective. These four identifications have disappeared, too. Kindlier descriptions have taken their place. Now we talk about those

who are mentally disordered, and we put them into two groups—those suffering from mental illness and those who are suffering from mental deficiency.
All four groups in the Lunacy Act, 1913, had one common feature: they were all mental defectives. Will the Joint Under-Secretary of State tell us the difference between mental deficiency in the Bill and mental defectiveness in the Lunacy Act, 1913? In the 1913 Act we tried to define the mental defective as a person who showed a condition of arrested or incomplete development of mind. Is that definition to be applied to the mentally deficient, or are we abandoning definition altogether, and simply leaving it to the two doctors, to determine the fate of the person who comes before them?
After all these Acts and all the treatments which have accompanied them, we are no nearer to knowing organically the cause of mental defection, idiocy, imbecility or any of these other illnesses which demand institutional treatment. We are dependent solely on behaviour as our guide in determining whether a person is to have hospital treatment or not. Will the psychopath come within the definition of mental deficiency or mental illness? He exhibits strange behaviour at times, does he not? Many people might think that he is suffering from some form of mental illness or deficiency, if behaviour is to be our guide in determining his future. Will the Minister tell us whether people of that type will come within the scope of the Bill.
If we look again at the three Acts we find a common purpose running through them. In the 1857 Act we had the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland. That was the name of the Board which looked after the lunatics and the private asylums which mostly obtained in those days. Its function was the supervision, management, direction and regulation of all matters under the 1857 Act in relation to lunatics. It had very wide powers. It could hold inquiries, summon and examine witnesses and so forth.
On 15th May, 1914, under the 1913 Act, the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy disappeared and we had the General Board of Control in Scotland. Once again let us note


its functions. They were to supervise, protect and control defectives. The trend to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) referred ran through all these changes. There has been a common aim—the desire and the need to protect, the mental defective. We come to this Bill, and again that fact is emphasised. Its purpose is to provide protective functions for those persons who are suffering from mental disorder. We have now got description down to one single group; but the purpose is still there.
What was the chief protective function that the General Board of Control had? Surely it was to safeguard the liberty of the subject. We are dealing with people who are subjects, and we should remember that. I believe this Bill makes it easier to get a patient into hospital compulsorily whenever this is found to be necessary. Whether it makes it easier to get the patient out of hospital I am not sure. It is a point that may have to be examined very closely in Committee. But of this I am certain, that the Bill makes no advance whatsoever in fitting the patient back into society. If I am wrong in that, I hope the Joint Under-Secretary will say so.
This problem of safeguarding the liberty of the individual becomes very important, because, wily hilly, old people have been put in these institutions which we now call hospitals. They are there because there is no other place to which they can go, and that is a terrible accusation to launch against the Government, who are primarily responsible.
The aged come into the new definitions very easily indeed. Is not senility an example of mental illness? Many old people become senile. They are not able adequately to fend for themselves. Sometimes we describe them as "doddering"; as people who have to be cared for, and when they get to that stage of what is called senility they can very easily be categorised as suffering from a form of mental illness. Because of that danger, certification becomes a matter of the gravest importance. Therefore, we should resort to certification only in the very last resort.
The procedure gives the two doctors enormous power, power as great as some dictators. We are told that the sheriff has to give his sanction. If two

doctors, separately, dealing with an individual come to the same conclusion and utter a certificate to the effect that the patient is suffering from mental illness, what sheriff in the land will disregard a decision reached in that way?
There is the further point that there is now power under the Bill to detain a person in the interests of his own safety. No Secretary of State could seek for wider powers than that in any Bill.

Mr. John Brewis: What alternative suggestion has the hon. Members to two doctors and a lawyer in the form of a sheriff carrying out certification?

Mr. Rankin: If the hon. Gentleman had been in the Chamber when I began speaking he would have heard me say that there were many points in the Bill which at this hour it is not convenient to pursue and that there would be controversy when we reached the Committee stage. I am dealing with some of the points on which there will be sharp controversy. Had the hon. Gentleman waited a second, I should have come to the safeguard which I want to put to the Secretary of State.
I am asked what safeguard we have against the two doctors. I am looking for such a safeguard. I seek protection for the patient. The primary thing is to look at this from the point of view of the liberty of the individual. The two doctors are a great advance on the 1857 Act under which a person could be committed on the certificate of one doctor. Nevertheless, it is enforcing and promoting authority; it is giving still greater power.
The Mental Welfare Board, like the boards under all the other Acts to which I have referred, is primarily concerned with the protection of the patient. Therefore, I suggest to the Secretary of State that, instead of bringing the Board into operation after the patient has been certified and taken to hospital, the Board should be brought into operation at the time when the two doctors are dealing with him. That is the one authority which can protect the patient, and if it is to protect him, it must do so not after certification, but when certification is being considered. I hope that the Secretary of State will very seriously consider that remedy.
There is the danger that the present method of certifying and detaining is creating a community of dependent persons. Only this evening I received a letter from the right hon. Gentleman dealing with one of them. I will not mention names because it would be unfair to do so, but the Minister knows the case to which I am referring. It is that of a patient at present in detention who could not on any conceivable excuse be allowed out. He has also been so long in detention that he is absolutely dependent upon the institution. He knows nothing but the hospital. Were he allowed out he could not, in all probability, sustain the normal process of living. As I say, he has become entirely dependent upon the institution. He has in addition reached an age when he would find it difficult to start afresh.
There is something wrong with a system of that type, and that is the system with which we are dealing tonight. We have been talking about the doctor, who will have a powerful function under the Bill, but is there going to be any scope for the psychologist and the sociologist, because here we are also dealing with a social problem? I must confess that I may have missed that point in the Bill because it is a long Bill to read and hard to grasp. I was not able to settle down to it until this morning, and I confess that I have read an immense amount of it in the course of the day. That is why I am speaking so late in the debate. I admit quite frankly that I was not quite ready to speak earlier. I wanted to talk about some of the things which I thought might not already have been mentioned, and that, to some extent, kept me out of the Chamber in the earlier part of the debate.
The hour is late and one does not wish to speak too long. I hope that I have touched on some matters of importance, matters which in my view must be attended to, and that in Committee we shall have a better opportunity of going into the Bill. I think that it is essentially a Committee Bill. As I have indicated, it is a Bill about which there will be sharp controversy concerning many of its Clauses, but if one looks at it generally and in the historical sense I am sure it can be regarded as a big step forward in what I hope will be a great curative mission in the interests of

people who have in years gone by received far too little attention from the community and from the Government. I hope that the Bill will bring these people a greater hope than they have found in the past.

11.34 p.m.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: I do not intend to detain the House very long, but I also wish to associate myself with the welcome given to this attempt to bring up to date the old Acts dealing with mental health and to give that attempt my full support. However, before finally committing myself to doing that, I want the Joint Under-Secretary of State to devote some little time when replying to the debate to the one aspect of the Bill with which I propose to deal. It is the issue of prime importance which will determine whether we shall have real success in implementing the very many Clauses which go to make up this Bill.
At first sight, it seems that the Secretary of State is writing into the Bill—he has certainly written it into the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum—that there is not to be and will not be additional expense over and above what is now being spent on mental health in Scotland.

Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith indicated dissent.

Mr. Manuel: Paragraph 2 of the Memorandum says:
The Bill does not involve any substantial new net charges upon central or local funds".
If the hon. Gentleman can satisfy me about this, he will perhaps save a great deal of time being spent on the point in Committee in an effort to write something into the various Clauses so that we may be certain that there will be the expansion which is necessary.
Paragraph 3 of the Memorandum says:
The Bill provides for the payment of fees and allowances to members of the Mental Welfare Board, and for the provision of officers and other staff and accommodation for the Board. The expenditure will be offset by savings consequent upon the dissolution of the General Board of Control.
If it is envisaged that, as a result of an expansion of head office staff, there will be more field work and more time will be spent generally on mental health and the prevention of mental illness, that will be money well spent.
Paragraph 5 of the Memorandum tells us
This duty has hitherto been exercised under Part V of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, now to be repealed, so that no new charges to central or local funds are involved.
The Secretary of State seems to be taking every opportunity to assure his right hon. and hon. Friends that there will be no greater call on taxation than there has been hitherto Otherwise, why should there be this reiteration of the statement about no new or substantial new expenditure being involved?
In her excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) referred to the fact that welfare workers concerned with mental health were spending too much of their time doing book work or office work—call it what one likes. She said that as high a proportion as 40 per cent. of their time was devoted to office work. This is deplorable. Of course, records must be kept, and the people doing field work must maintain their notes and records, but there should be sufficient office staff to ensure that there is not this waste of valuable time through their being tied for too long to a desk.
My hon. Friend dealt also with psychiatry and sociology. I hope that these two sectors of mental health will not be cramped in their usefulness by a lack of clerical staff and that those who do the work will not have their activities curtailed by being tied too much to an office stool. It would be deplorable if the skills acquired by these people were virtually wasted because they were doing work which should be done by somebody else.
The Joint Under-Secretary who is to reply to this debate is virtually responsible for general welfare work in the Health Service in Scotland. We have been advised by circular to address our correspondence and questions on various aspects to him, and it will be to him that we take our constituency cases that arise under the Bill. I hope, therefore, that he has taken every precaution to equip himself with the necessary mental skill, although he once told me that he did not begin his education until the age of seven. I hope he recognises that in the modern society in which we live, this is regarded as an ever widening and more important subject. Because more of it is being discovered and it covers much

wider spheres than was hitherto thought, it is something about which we must be realistic.
Among the work which is placed upon them by the various Clauses of the Bill, local authorities are to deal with children who cannot attend ordinary school or even special school. These are the most anxious and worrying constituency cases with which we have to deal. We have visited the homes of this type of child, in which the parents, who love their children, carry on for years, but eventually the mother is so overcome by the harrowing existence, not only of herself but of the other children in the home, that the mentally sick child has to be accommodated elsewhere, not only for its own benefit, but for the welfare of the others. We have all had experience of this type of case. Unless a great deal of money is made available to the local authorities to deal with these cases, we shall not get a real solution of the problem.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) stated that accommodation was available for only half the mental deficiency cases which needed institutional care and protection. Only half the accommodation that is necessary is available. In the problem cases to which I am referring where the ordinary avenue of education is not available to a child, local authorities must make special arrangements for him. I hope that local authorities who want to do something to help this type of child will not be hamstrung by not being given the grants which they need to carry out their duties.
I have been a member of a regional hospital board for many years. The amount of money allocated to the board and to the local authority for carrying out the work that they have to do is insufficient. They are unable, for financial reasons, to deal with the problems with which they are faced. If they are to carry out the duties which seem to be embodied in the Bill the Secretary of State for Scotland will have to persuade the Cabinet to provide a larger sum of money to the hospital board which is responsible for initiating programmes to deal with mental health.
More accommodation is needed for old people. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) referred to this. We all know of cases


where it has been necessary to get an old person certified so that he can find shelter. Very often such a person is alone in the world and certification is the only way in which he can get a roof over his head. That is deplorable, I think every hon. Member would object to someone being certified because there were some small signs of senility or mental decay due to old age. Local authorities must provide more accommodation for these old people. They must have homes in which they will be looked after and not run into the danger of injuring themselves through falling or other accidents. If we provide more accommodation for old people, we will, in the long run, effect savings in the mental health service.
I want to be assured that the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will do all that they can to ensure that mental hospitals have adequate staffs. In a mental hospital that I know of the governor and the staff are excellent people, but their efforts are sometimes cramped by the shortage of staff.
My observations of hospitals in various parts of the country lead me to believe that during the day-time staffing cover for the inmates is fairly adequate, but staffing arrangements during the night may leave something to be desired. I do not want to highlight the position any more than is necessary, but the right hon. Gentleman may find that there are wards in which there are mental defectives and where there is only one orderly in charge.
That should not be the case in mental hospitals. Anything can happen and has happened where a patient needs attention because he has become unruly and where the orderly has been left without proper assistance. That may be due to shortage of staff, but I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give some thought to the matter. During the hours of the night, the onus should not be placed on one warder—"warden" might be a better word in connection with a mental hospital—to take complete charge of a ward in which there are mental defectives and where anything can happen and where he would find it difficult to quell any outburst through not being able to call on additional help.
There are other points, but they can be more, effectively covered in Committee. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not close his mind against having some fairly substantial net increase instead of decrease as suggested in the Money Resolution and that when we get to Committee, we shall be able to proceed apace with the Bill, both sides wanting to do the best possible for Scotland and for the poor people afflicted in this way, recognising that it is not only they, but the wider circle of their family and friends who are the sufferers and who look to us for a solution of the problems which are becoming so glaringly apparent in many communities.

11.52 p.m.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: The last time Scottish business was interrupted was, I think, in October, 1956, during the passage of a miscellaneous provisions Measure dealing with education. That set in train the ill omen of circumstances which we all recall with a great deal of pain and anguish, namely, the Suez adventure. I hope that in having a similar interruption of Scottish business tonight we have not had another omen which will bring about that sort of situation in Cyprus. I am sure that all hon. Members will endorse the sentiment that we do not want anything serious to arise there through the breakdown of negotiations.
Scots are tolerant people and we surrendered the last three hours of valuable debating time willingly. We have not yet managed to recompense ourselves for that lost time, but the Joint Under-Secretary and I will try our very best.
If I may join with my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton), congratulations are due to the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry) who spoke so unusually from his own back benches in such splendid native accents unsullied by the disadvantage of having been educated in an English public school. We were very pleased to hear his sentiments, with which many of us joined. I can assure him that there is no question of having to implore us not to divide the House against the Second Reading. On the contrary, we welcome the Bill, although recognising that if the Government persist in their present attitude towards finance, while we may


be no better off with the passage of the Bill, we shall be no worse off. As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) expressed it. We were converts long before the Minister to the idea of reforming the mental health legislation for Scotland.

Mr. Brewis: Why did not the party opposite reform it after the Russell Report was issued in 1946?

Dr. Mabon: For the very good reason, as the hon. Gentleman must know, that the National Health Service Act—

Mr. Manuel: There was a lot more.

Dr. Mabon: If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will answer the question. Because the National Health Service legislation was in process of being prepared and we were engaged in recasting the whole shape of the medical services in the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) said if all, the provisions contained in the National Health Service had been operated by succeeding Secretaries of State, including the present one, a great deal of what we complain has not been done would have been done.

Mr. Manuel: My hon. Friend did not mention the main point to which I was trying to direct attention. Hon. Members opposite were complaining bitterly in 1946 because there was so much legislation initiated by the then Labour Government that there was no room for anything else.

Dr. Mabon: I am pleased to receive the support of my hon. Friend. I do not think hon. Members opposite can genuinely object to the Labour Party having failed to put forward certain items of social reform. We were a great social reform party in 1945 to 1951, comparable only to the Liberal Governments of 1906 to 1914. Only the most biased and prejudiced Conservative would deny us the right to that claim. An enormous amount of legislation was passed in those post-war years. I believe that in one year eighty Bills received the Royal Assent.
Having been distracted from my theme, let me return to the burden of my argument. Hon. Members on this side of the House would like to join with hon. Members opposite in congratulating Mr. John Dunlop, the chairman, and his

Sub-Committee which dealt with mental health legislation. We are pleased that he has now become the chairman of the Scottish Health Services Council. That does not mean that we agree with everything that the Sub-Committee produced. In a way, it was a disservice to Mr. Dunlop and his colleagues that the Secretary of State did not argue many of the cases which they tried to explain in the memoranda in justification of decisions taken in the Bill.
I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) raised an important point. He expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the procedure involving the doctors and the sheriff. Most of us, including the National Council for Civil Liberties, are pleased that there is a difference from the English provision, that there is another lay or non-medical authority to which one has to proceed. There is substance in the argument of my hon. Friend, and I give him the point that while there may be the inclusion of the sheriff, the question is, on what does the sheriff base his considerations? There is substance in this when we consider that Clause 6 is, I will not say ludicrous, but axiomatic to say the least. "White is white," say the Clause, and it pronounces something which is self-evident. It does not define any specific categories at all. It defines two medical conditions. Yet all we got from the Secretary of State in his brief reference to the Clause was a twinkle in his bonny blue eyes, and that was the end of it.
There was no explanation of why the Government, as distinct from the Committee, had decided that they would accept paragraph 9 of the Memorandum published in 1958 by the Sub-Committee appointed by the Scottish Health Services Council. Since the Secretary of State has not done the Committee the service of discussing this, I think I might have the permission of the House to go through the four points mentioned.
It says in its first argument that the term "psychopathic" has become meaningless in many ways and is no longer a clinical entity. I believe that the Secretary of State, as a Cabinet Minister, voted for the English Act. Therefore, I presume he thought it good for the English but perhaps not so good for the Scots, for this argument leads us to the point where one might say, as


the Committee does in the second part of paragraph 9 of its Report, that this means a stigma. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Govan suggested, no matter what name we give anything, ultimately it becomes associated with the particular institution, disease or whatever it is, and the name becomes a stigma. There is no point in trying to change names vainly hoping to get ahead of popular prejudice. That is a rather pointless exercise.
The third argument of the Committee was not actually an argument for having no categories but one for having a specific category. It used the words:
To deal adequately with the psychopathic group.
Note that it actually uses the phrase without inverted commas, implying that there is such a group. Of course there is such a group. The curious thing is that in Clause 23 (1, a and b) we have almost the precise definition, or at least a re-echo of the definition in the English Act, of what of psychopath is. Although the Scottish Ministers pretend that this Bill is a model of empiricism based on a definition which will not involve them in legal obligations, they are obliged to adopt the English definition in Clause 23. In view of the time spent in arguing this point—perhaps it is of a rather remote and clinical nature, nevertheless there are medical men who are interested in Parliament and they are anxious to know why the Government have made this decision—the Secretary of State might have deigned to tell us why this decision has been endorsed.
This is the relevance of it. If there is no definition of insanity or mental disorder, or mental deficiency, in such terms as in the English Act, on what grounds can the sheriff proceed to investigate the recommendations of two doctors? The answer of the Secretary of State is case law and, I think he said, training, experience and judgment. A number of sheriffs may well feel like a number of doctors. This may sound strange to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small). There are a number of sheriffs who, like a number of doctors, are disinclined to be the sole deciding parties in committing a person to compulsory detention under the mental

health laws. That is why the English provision was fought by many doctors who did not like the idea. To use the words of my hon. Friend quoting the aggrieved patient, "It was the doctor who put me there." There would be no resentment felt towards the relative who may have been responsible for initiating the proceedings in the interests of the patient, but it would be felt against the doctor. Often in a little village or small community that means a great deal, and it leads to an unfortunate reflection on the doctor in many ways.
The point which has emerged about defining mental disease in Clause 6 is that it has a reflection in the decision of the sheriff. This was the point which was often raised in England and which sparked off the cry for a Royal Commission—that whenever two doctors appeared, the English J.P. merely endorsed what they said almost without question. The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) referred to the fact that many people languished in mental institutions in this country who had long been sane. We remember the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) and of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Dr. Johnson) on specific cases long before the Mental Health Act, 1959, was passed.
Are we confident that under the procedure in the Bill the sheriff will not fall into the same practice as that of the English magistrates which gave rise to such complaints about the operation of the English system? I ask the question even though, not unreasonably, we are congratulating ourselves on the new procedure. Let us not be too anxious to congratulate ourselves on the point. Admittedly, if it works it will be an admirable solution to the problem of how we commit a person, ensuring the balance between the interests of the community and the rights of the person concerned.
As the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) rightly said in his intervention, if we demolish one procedure we must be prepared to offer another in its place, and, frankly, I can see no other, but I want to be sure that the procedure suggested in the Bill will work and that it will not carry the inherent defect of the system which was worked so unhappily in England.

Mr. Rankin: Will not my hon. Friend agree that the sheriff stands in danger of being placed in a subordinate position to the doctors, because there are two doctors, one supporting the other, while he has to take a solitary, individual decision?

Mr. Brewis: Does the hon. Member agree that all the cases in which there has been scandal in England, such as that of Kathleen Rutty, have been cases not of mental disorder but of mental deficiency? Would it not be possible to use the I.Q. system to find out whether they were feeble minded?

Dr. Mabon: A closer reading of Clause 6 by the hon. Member for Galloway will reveal that it embraces mental illness and mental deficiency. The procedure before the sheriff in the case of the mentally defective is similar to that of the case of a person suffering from mental ill health. I agree that it has happened mainly with mental deficiency, but cases have been recorded of it happening to people suffering from mental ill health, and I will come to that in a moment in connection with another part of the Report. As my hon. Friend the Member for Govan said, the sheriff may well be placed in an invidious position. Moreover, he is not only the judge in the case but also the appellate judge in any succeeding appeal, which incidentally is not too precisely defined in the Bill.
It is possible under Clause 6, as drafted, that anybody under twenty-one can be compulsorily detained provided that two doctors are prepared to state that he
requires or is susceptible to medical treatment"—
Clause 23 (1)—which treatment includes, according to Clause 109,
care and training under medical supervision".
That seems to me to be an extremely wide proviso which must be justified at the Box by the Government. So far we have not heard an adequate and ample justification of such a serious matter. I know that, quite rightly, the Secretary of State takes Part IV seriously and spent some time on it in his speech, but we are entitled to know a little more about this before Parliament agrees to revise legislation on such a broad basis.
The Committee discussed many of these things at length. On page 9 of the same Report, the first Report in 1958, there is a whole section devoted to what is called the 28 days observation period. This is a mechanism by which we might secure the review of cases of persons apparently unreasonably or unfairly involved in certification procedure. At the time when they were affected by their illness or disorder they may have been quite violent and socially irresponsible. In our Bill the 7 days emergency procedure is referred to but there is an implied rejection of there being a 28 days period.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) spoke of the Aberdeen experiment where they were able to observe children for two months and, as a consequence of the experiment—this can be proved from statistical evidence—they had a better prognosis and less sense of hopelessness, because these children could be observed under ideal conditions. The same applies in the case of mental ill health. The English have adopted a 28-day trial period for observation. That is not in this Bill. I presume, therefore, that there are good reasons for its omission, although we have heard none. I looked at the Committee's Report and it argues the case for this omission. There are three arguments, which I will not recite now, but I cannot honestly see how these can be very formidable arguments. Look at the succeeding paragraph, however.
Paragraph 25 of the Report says:
On the other hand, although it is not within our remit to make recommendations regarding the criminal code, we consider that in respect of persons who have appeared before the courts and whose mental condition requires observation there would be advantage in the procedure suggested by the Royal Commission for compulsory admission to hospital for up to 28 days' observation and preliminary treatment.
That is an amazing argument—"If you have allegedly committed a crime we will give you 28 days' observation. If you are an ordinary citizen who has not committed a criminal offence we will certify for a year." If that is a sensible state of affairs it should be justified at the Dispatch Box. But this has not been done. I do not think any of us should adopt an absolutely inflexible position, but we are entitled as reasonable people to expect some explanation


of why the 28 days recommendation was not accepted.
Another minor matter—if it can be called minor; apparently it is, as there are so many of these matters—is the question of the Mental Welfare Board. My hon. Friends the Members for Govan and for Lanarkshire, North emphasised that the Board had one clear, definite function, namely to protect patients. Although the General Board of Control in Scotland had a dichotomy of functions—in one of the Reports it is described as being the centre-forward in the Secretary of State's mental health team and the referee in the question of the patient's interest—nevertheless one of the complaints against the General Board of Control in England and, I believe, in Scotland in a small number of cases, was that this was the Board with whom one had to quarrel in order to get patients out of hospital. This may not be a widespread practice in Scotland—there are so few cases—but I have heard this, not so much from Members of Parliament as from doctors.
This is a curious matter. We are going to have a Mental Welfare Board which is enjoined to perform a function formerly allotted to the General Board, and that Board has been criticised in the past for doing just the reverse of this policy. The Mental Welfare Board will exist to protect the interests of the patient. It must demonstrate that it is free from any influence by the Secretary of State, by any sheriff and by any other persons other than those who constitute the Board. It must be an entirely independent organisation if it is to carry out its duties satisfactorily.
The Board's membership may be five or seven. Two of its members have to be doctors, but there is no provision for there being a lawyer. It is possible that all the members could be doctors. I am a great believer in doctors—they are very fine people—but I would never agree to a board of this kind being made up entirely of medical men, for that would be wrong. The Board should have a legal element and a lay element.
I do not see why this cannot be incorporated in the Bill. Some may say that it is a committee point, but I emphasise it because the whole tenor of the function

of the Board is to be changed. We should ensure that there is a proper balance in its constitution. If we can set aside time to ensure that there are two doctors, we can set aside time to ensure that other specific types of person serve on the Board.
To turn to the main bulk of the Bill, the minority of families in this country are fortunate enough to say that none of their relatives, near or distant, has ever been involved in mental ill health. There is a widespread incidence. The social stigma attached to certification and mental ill health is at present almost comparable with the stigma formerly carried by tuberculosis. People are gradually becoming educated and tuberculosis is no longer a vicious social disease because it has been cured by the wonder drugs—not by the Scottish Office—and mental ill health will probably lose its stigma when we are able to see more cures and more preventive advances being made. The stigma can only be removed when we can show that there is no fear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark said, it is the hopelessness, the sense of fearfulness, the sense of permanent blackness in mental deficiency and mental disorder that gives the whole subject the atmosphere of gloom. It is that kind of thing that we have to sweep away.
That can only be done by persuading people to undergo voluntary treatment. That is the reason for the Bill—to revise the process of certification, to make it minimal and to encourage more and more people to go forward voluntarily for treatment. It means that about one-third of patients will be spared the indignity of certification in future. It means that many mental defectives will be released from institutions. The Fyfe Committee said in its Report that there were 5,000 mentally deficient persons awaiting admission to institutions. It is not unreasonable to expect that under the Bill there will be the release of a substantial number of mental defectives. Of the 52,000 National Health Service beds, 20,400 are for the mentally ill, not counting 6,300 for defectives detained compulsorily. Many of these persons will come out of hospital. What will happen to them? When will they come out?
My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock made a splendid case when he argued this. For twelve years almost precisely the same powers have been in the hands of the local authorities, and the Secretary of State has been able at any time to direct that they should become duties but at present they are permissive powers. My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark made a first-class speech on this subject. For twelve years the Government have been able to show their mettle. There is this process of not mandating the authorities but of saying "We will gradually nominate authorities and duties one by one, item by item, as the circumstances allow." This is empiricism gone mad, if I may quote the Secretary of State in another context.
The point is that for twelve years this experiment has been tried. Hon. Members opposite have no right to say to us, "Ah, well, you have been very demanding and unreasonable in saying that it ought to be mandatory." We have tried the permissive system with the nominating power of duties. It has not succeeded, and our proof is in the Mental Deficiency Report, probably one of the most astonishing documents ever to come out of a Government office. The Fyfe Committee Report published in 1957 had some damning things to say about the administration of the mental defective services in Scotland, and precious little has been done since that Report was published. Some of these dreadful things were itemised in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan). In an admirable speech he went over many points, but he naturally had to leave out many of the things that he wanted to say.
On page 13 of the Fyfe Report there are two very pertinent paragraphs—paragraphs 34 and 35—headed "Community Care" and "After-Care". To where do these defectives who are going out go? To the community care and after-care. Paragraph 34 says:
The question of the respective financial responsibilities of the National Assistance Board and local authorities for the provision of funds and facilities for defectives should also be considered
That is totally inadequate. The latter part of paragraph 35 says:
The Sub-Committee found little evidence that these obligations with respect to after-care were being fulfilled.

Of course we have been through all the figures for all the facilities that are available. This really is the crux of the objection which hon. Members on this side of the House have. Of course, we shall not oppose the Bill, but we want to see it become a reality. We do not want to see it become just another Measure on the Statute Book, a Measure without meaning or with only as much meaning as previous legislation has had. We do not want to see precisely no advance being made.
A very excellent booklet has been published by the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children which talks about the two kinds of centres which can be used for these children, occupation centres and industrial training centres. No attempt seems to be made by the Government to describe the sort of centres which they have in mind or how they are to be financed. Some of my hon. Friends are quarrelling with the Government about the transfer of the occupational centres from the education committee to the health committee. But the industrial training centre calls not only for a combination of health and education, but also for the Ministry of Labour to try and see if we can integrate many of these adolescents who have been so unfortunate into the ordinary society and work of our community.
These are the kind of things that we should like to have heard about. We have not heard very much We impress upon the Government that while we have many reservations on many points our fundamental objection to the Bill is the fact that it does not promise any financial impetus in order to try to discharge these functions.
There are nine parts to the Bill, said the Secretary of State. There are five Schedules, said he, obviously enjoying the fact that there are so many pages in the Bill and so many words. But if he could only have added a paragraph to say that over the next five years, either in this Vote or in some other Vote within the National Health Service, the Government intended to have a financial programme which would build up all the hostels, centres and hospitals and be used to train the psychiatric and social workers, then we could understand that on the skeleton of the Bill it was intended to place flesh and blood. But we have had nothing like that.
In the knowledge that behind the right hon. Gentleman lies the Treasury we are not very sanguine about the prospect unless the Scottish Ministers can demonstrate that they have some plan or scheme for bringing up to date quickly the mental health services of Scotland. We shall support the Bill and, in Committee, seek to amend it as best we can.

12.25 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): We have had a good debate on what is a rather complicated Bill. The standard of the contributions which hon. Members have made reflects the attention they have devoted to the problems of mental health, and I thank them for the general welcome they have given to the Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, West (Mr. Hendry) on his maiden speech. He has a wide experience of local government, and I hope that he will make further contributions at later stages of the Bill, when what he has to say will, I am sure, be of great value to us.
Inevitably, in discussing a Bill of this kind, several detailed points have been raised. I shall do my best to answer them now, but, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) recognised, they are really best discussed in Committee because of their very complicated nature. Although the subject of the matter is complicated, the object is a simple one, to enable the mentally sick to have the same informal, easy access to care and treatment which is available already to the physically sick. Simplicity is, however, often a difficult thing to achieve, and, in the process of seeking to simplify and modernise the law on mental health, we have produced a rather long and bulky Bill.
The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), together with her hon. Friends the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) and the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), drew particular attention to the financial provisions of the Bill. The hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North seemed to think that, because the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum states that
The Bill does not involve any substantial new charges

this disclosed a weakness in the Bill which would prevent the development of better mental health facilities.
The attitude of the hon. Lady and hon. Members opposite may spring from a misunderstanding of the nature and scope of the Bill. The Bill is designed to provide the framework within which expansion will be possible. It does not itself initiate any new service, but it indicates the lines along which development should take place. The Bill creates a code. It sets the legal foundation for the things we want to have done in terms of care, treatment and aftercare. It does not itself provide—this was recognised by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) who has very courteously explained to me why he could not be here now—the accommodation or recruit the workers essential for the work or support any of the unfortunate people we are trying to assist. These services are all the responsibility of various agencies, and the Bill lays down only the law under which they will work. Therefore, it does not require substantial new charges. I hope that that explanation will make clear to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) the meaning of paragraph 2 of the Memorandum.

Miss Herbison: All my hon. Friends have made it quite clear that they understand what the Joint Under-Secretary of State is now saying. That is why we referred to the National Health Service Act and the National Assistance Act, since under those Acts local authorities have been quite unable to make proper provision. There ought to be financial provision in this Measure. There was no misunderstanding of it.

Mr. Galbraith: I will be coming to that aspect. Thus the National Health Service will provide, at Exchequer expense in the usual way, the hospital and specialist services that are required for mental illness. The local authority services, of which the hon. Lady has just spoken and to which the Bill refers, will be provided under other Acts.
The Bill clarifies and emphasises the provision that local health authorities will be expected to make. It also ensures that restrictions in other Acts that might stand in the way of local authorities giving all the services possible to the mentally disordered are swept away.


What it boils down to is that we look to the local authorities to play a large part in the expansion of the mental services where modern medical opinion shows that expansion is most needed—that is, outside the hospitals and in various forms of community care.
This expansion will certainly involve considerable expenditure, a point which the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North made. I assure the House that, as far as this expenditure falls on the local authorities, it will be taken into account in the discussions on general grant which will be held later this year.

Mr. Ross: Most unsatisfactory.

Mr. Galbraith: I recognise, as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) says, that this arrangement does not altogether satisfy all hon. Members and that there may be differences of opinion as to the best way of financing local authority services. As the hon. Lady said in opening the debate, however, we have discussed these differences on many occasions in the recent past, and my right hon. Friend and I do not feel that it would be right in this Bill to put the clock back. So much for the financial aspects.

Mr. Manuel: The hon. Gentleman has said that care will be taken by means of a general Exchequer grant to ensure that the money is provided to permit the necessary expansion of the services. Is he giving a pledge that money will be earmarked for mental health care and that the block grant method will not be used?

Mr. Galbraith: It would be the normal block grant procedure. So much for finance.

Mr. E. G. Willis: This is an important matter, because it places a big burden on the local authorities. Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication of what allowance is to be made in the next block grant proposals for the increased expenditure on these services?

Mr. Galbraith: As I said only two minutes ago, that will be subject to the negotiations which are shortly to take place. [An HON. MEMBER: "Take it or leave it."]
Several hon. Members have, rightly, taken advantage of this Second Reading debate as an opportunity to comment generally on the mental health services, so I would like to say a word about the extent of the problem of mental disorder. The number of those who are mentally ill in hospital today is a little over 20,000, or about one-third of all hospital beds in Scotland. Generally, our resources are able to accommodate this number of patients, although there is a certain amount of overcrowding in some hospitals and schemes for major improvement are in hand. The situation on the mental hospital side is not bad.
Concerning mental deficiency, however, there are at present about 6,300 beds and, as the hon. Member for Craigton pointed out, this is not sufficient, but building projects are going forward which will provide about another 800 beds within the next three years. No final figure of the remaining deficit after that can readily be calculated, because it is not easy at this stage to predict how many of those now in institutions can return to the community under the new policy enunciated in the Bill. Apart from one or two areas, however, and except for some classes of low-grade defectives, we generally expect that when the building programme which I have just announced is complete, we will be within sight of adequate accommodation for the mentally deficient.
As for the old folk, the figures mentioned by the hon. Member for Fife, West have been fairly steady over recent years. The hon. Member asked, and so did my hon. Friend the Member for Fife. East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) why the proportion of old people in hospitals was high. The reason is that the incidence of mental illness, increases in old age. We hope, however, that with the provision of more intermediate hostels and more old people's homes, both of which are encouraged by the Bill, the number of old people who need to stay in hostels—

Mr. Willis: Not encouraged.

Mr. Galbraith: That is the hon. Gentleman's argument, but it is not the argument that I am propounding. I say that the Bill does encourage these things. The number of old folk who will stay in hospital will decline, and I believe that this will meet the point


made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small).
As I have already indicated, a considerable portion of the Bill is devoted to ensuring that all the resources of the local authorities will be available to help the mentally disordered. This does not imply that local authorities are entering this field for the first time. They have for a long time played an important part in the care of the mentally sick and, in particular, of the mentally defective. For example, there are 2,600 mental defectives boarded out at the moment under the responsibility of local authorities.
The proper supervision and visitation of these patients is a matter to which many local authorities have devoted attention. The work that local authorities already do will be preserved and continued, and the particular provisions that we have listed in Clause 7 are designed to allow more comprehensive developments in future. For example, the reference to residential accommodation links up with the development in thought that the proper environment for certain mentally disordered persons is not necessarily within the hospital service. They are more likely to get better if they are able to continue to live in the community, or at least to return to the community soon afterwards.
I should like to say a word about education. Local authorities have devoted a considerable part of their resources to ensuring that the less gifted child is given every opportunity to develop his capacities to the full extent. The House will appreciate that there are some children who, although they are unsuitable for ordinary schools, can benefit from education modified to suit their capacity in a special school. In addition to these, there are other children whose defect of intellect or emotional disturbance is such that their education must be limited to training in occupation centres.
In Scotland the term "special schools" covers not only schools, but occupational centres of this sort and the great majority of children are able to benefit from one or other of these special schools which are provided by the education authority. There remain, however, a few children whom the education

authority regards as unsuitable, even for training in one of its occupation centres. I think that the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North was suggesting that the education authority should be given responsibility for these children too. We think that that would probably be a mistake, and we thought it right to preserve the existing statutory responsibilities as laid down in the National Health Service Act, 1947.
Education authorities in Scotland have not been at all backward. They have provided about 43 occupation centres for training children under 16, and there is no doubt that education authorities in general show a keen interest in these children and their welfare. It seems to us to be perfectly proper for the education authority to be left with the power—and this is the important point—to decide whether a child can benefit from the facilities it provides, subject, of course, to the right of appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The alternative point of view which was referred to by the hon. Member for Craigton was advanced by the Scottish Health Service Council. This was that to ensure continuity of help for mental defectives all occupation and training centres should be the responsibility of the local health authority and not of the education authority. However, in view of the record of Scottish education authorities in this work, we felt that it would be better to leave the duties to the two types of authorities, as they are at present.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Galbraith: I am glad that the House agrees, but there is one proviso which I hope will not mean that there will not still be agreement between the two sides. It is only when local education authorities consider that they cannot help a child that his training will be transferred to the health authority.

Mr. Ross: Does the hon. Gentleman mean training or care?

Mr. Galbraith: I mean that degree of training which might be regarded as care and which the education authorities feel that they are not competent to give. The present position is to be kept, i.e., the education authorities will deal with


children both in special schools and in occupation centres and only when that authority feels that a child is not suited to its occupation centre will the child be transferred to the health authority.

Mr. Ross: What will happen in those areas where there are no occupation centres and where the local authorities do not provide them?

Mr. Galbraith: It is obvious that we will have to examine this matter at greater length on another occasion.
One of the most important points which was raised by all hon. Members opposite was that the powers of local authorities to expand the services they provide are permissive only and are not expressed as duties. There are several reasons for that decision. First, not all local authorities have the same potential for expansion and a statutory duty would therefore have to be limited to what the smallest local authority could manage. Further, it would leave no scope for raising standards, which are easily adjustable, as and when required by the procedure envisaged in the Bill.
Secondly, if local democracy is to mean anything, then local authorities must at least be given the chance to exercise their initiative and to carry out developments along the lines which they think best. From this diversity of experience and experiment one local authority can learn from another.

Mrs. Hart: Can the hon. Gentleman explain what factors limit the potentiality of the smaller authority? Are we to take it that there will be two standards, one for the larger authorities and one for the smaller?

Mr. Galbraith: No, but one hopes that gradually the smaller authorities' standards will be worked up. I can best explain the point by giving an illustration. The speed of a convoy has to be the speed of the slowest ship. Equally, if these standards are imposed by Statute, it would have to be the standards of the smallest and least well developed authority—[HON. MEMBERS: "No".]—that is the view I take. We all have plenty of time to discuss this on another occasion.
A third argument in favour of the Bill as drafted is that to single out the mental health services for entirely

different treatment from the rest of the Health Service, where the powers are permissive, would be quite contrary to modern thought on this subject, which is that we should wipe out the division between mental and physical health services. We would be doing the very thing we are trying not to do.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Nevertheless, is it not true that the mental health services are not at the same stage of development as those for physical health and that, therefore, that argument is rather unfair?

Mr. Galbraith: I do not admit that it is unfair. We are trying to make the mental and physical health services the same and yet the hon. Member immediately says that we must have permissive powers for the one and mandatory powers for the other. We do not agree. We have permissive powers for both cases at a time when one is trying to make the two types of medicine comparable.

Miss Herbison: There is something in the hon. Gentleman's argument that both should be treated alike; but, with permissive powers, several local authorities have not provided what they ought to have provided for physical health. If we have to make both the same, could we not have mandatory and not permissive powers in both cases?

Mr. Galbraith: I do not think I can agree to that.

Mr. Ross: Do not say that.

Mr. Galbraith: I mean at this stage. Everything I say is subject to the proviso that we shall have heaps of opportunity to—

Mr. Willis: Heaps?

Mr. Galbraith: —go into these matters.

Mr. Willis: We have only the Committee stage.

Mr. Galbraith: I am only following the feeling of the House. Practically every hon. Member has said that, so I do not except anything else—unfortunately, perhaps.
The hon. Member for Govan asked a question about the so-called psychopaths and the hon. Member for


Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) also referred to the class of patients mentioned in Clause 23. These are the high-grade mental defectives, and those mentally ill patients whose illness is displayed only in their behaviour over a long period. We have taken the view that medical treatment under compulsion is most likely to be effective for these patients during their adolescence, and that unless they fall foul of the law, they should not later be subject to compulsory treatment. Accordingly, the ordinary provisions of the Bill will reach these patients only if they are under the age of 21 and they will, subject to certain safeguards, have to be discharged not later than their 25th birthday. It is possible to suggest that any age that is fixed for this purpose is to some extent arbitrary, but we think that by allowing this reasonable period for treatment we are striking a proper balance between the liberty of the subject and the need for the health services to reach those patients who may benefit from treatment.
As to the categories to which the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and the hon. Member for Greenock referred, we believe that we have managed to provide for their proper treatment without making use of the terminology of the English Act with its four categories of mental disorder. We have stuck to two categories because Scottish doctors take the view that psychopaths whom they may be able to assist can always be regarded either as mentally ill or mentally defective. Further, in Scotland there is not the same anxiety as the Royal Commission apparently found in England to get rid of the term, "mental deficiency." No one in Scotland seems to prefer the terms, "subnormality" and "severe subnormality" used in the English Act. Because of this it seemed important to us to provide the medical profession in Scotland with terms in the Scottish Statute which it recognises and accepts. We think it important to do this especially when it can be done at the same time as providing a medium to limit compulsion to the same extent as in England without the complexity of a large number of categories which are apparently found to be necessary in England.

Mr. Rankin: And, of course, the treatment, with the definition not stated, will be in the control of the doctors who will certify.

Mr. Galbraith: I am not certain that, even if we had not four, but forty categories, we should not still to a certain extent be in the hands of the doctors. It is difficult to get away from that.

Mr. Rankin: How unfortunate.

Mr. Galbraith: One has to have faith in somebody at some time.
During the Christmas Recess, knowing that this debate would be held soon, I took the opportunity to visit various mental hospitals and institutions and I have seen something of the inspiring work which has been referred to and which is being done by many devoted people. The hon. Member for Lanark and the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North referred to the need for additional staff. They recognised that there are problems of recruitment and training which were examined by the Young-husband Committee.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health are considering the recommendations of that Committee and I cannot anticipate their decisions. We recognise the need for an adequate supply of skilled teachers and I welcome the suggestions of the hon. Member for Lanark and particularly her reference to the possibility of employing married women on this work. As it is, however, local authority workers, hospital staffs and voluntary workers of all kinds are helping to create a service in which men and women can confidently expect to find ever more rewarding work which I hope will do something to stimulate recruiting to this service because we shall certainly need recruits if we are to expand the service in the way in which we hope to expand it.
As a statutory basis of the service, we are confident that this is the sort of instrument Scottish opinion will want to have. I am sure that the general welcome the Bill has received tonight truly reflects the attitude of our fellow countrymen towards this problem. It is a happy coincidence that in Scotland


we should mark the World Mental Health Year with legislative reforms that point the way to further practical improvements. I accordingly invite the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order. No. 38 (Committal of Bills).

Notwithstanding anything in paragraph (21 of Standing Order No. 57 (Standing committees (constitution and powers)) and Standing Order No. 59 (Scottish Standing Committee), Bill to be considered by the Scottish Standing Committee.—[Mr. Maclay.]

Orders of the Day — MENTAL, HEALTH (SCOTLAND) [MONEY]

[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).

[Major Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to repeal the Lunacy (Scotland) Acts, 1857 to 1913, and the Mental Deficiency (Scotland) Acts, 1913 and 1940; to make fresh provision with respect to the reception, care and treatment of persons suffering, or appearing to be suffering, from mental disorder, and with respect to their property and affairs; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

(a) any expenditure of a Secretary of State under the said Act of the present Session other than expenditure on grants to local authorities;
(b) any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under any other enactment.—[Mr. Galbraith.]

Resolution to be reported.

Report to be received this day.

Orders of the Day — TELEPHONE SERVICE (SUBSCRIBERS, CLAYTON)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

12.54 a.m.

Mr. W. R. Williams: I regret very much, Mr. Speaker, that through circumstances which are quite outside our control, you and I and the hon. Lady the Assistant Postmaster-General who is to reply to this debate, have been kept here rather later than I expected, I cannot see my way, however, not to pursue this matter because I regard it as a rather serious one, and perhaps an urgent one.
The matter I wish to raise tonight concerns action on the part of a property owner who owns a considerable amount of property in the Clayton division of Manchester. This action, in the opinion of many constituents of mine, appears to be rather mean, unjust and anti-social.
These are the facts, quite briefly, as they have been presented to me. On 18th December, 1958, Mr. J. Smith, of 26, Stokes Street, Clayton, was notified by the telephone manager, Manchester, that at the end of one month from the receipt of the notification his telephone service would be withdrawn wholly, or in part, as from early in January, 1959. The telephone manager was good enough to inform Mr. Smith that this decision arose directly from the request by the landlord, or to be more precise, the landlady, of the house in which he resides and of which he has been the established tenant for very many years.
Mr. Smith has been a continuous telephone subscriber since May, 1948. His work necessitates frequent and regular use of the telephone. As a result of the removal of the telephone and the fittings, he was very anxious about the continuity of his job. He was amazed and distressed at the decision, which arose from the request of this landlady.
It is only fair to say that the Post Office officials in Manchester were equally staggered by the landlady's request, because they sent a superintendent to see the landlady to discover whether they had misunderstood her request. It became quite obvious to the superintendent that the lady knew exactly what


she wanted to do and that her decision was firm and unchangeable, and the Post Office, as I understand the position, had no option, under certain Telegraph Acts, but to act in accordance with the landlady's wishes.
Mr. Smith wrote immediately to his landlady to ask for formal permission. He received no reply. He wrote again on 7th January, 1959, and enclosed his letter in a registered cover. In this letter he appealed on human grounds to the landlady to reconsider her decision. He said,
You will have no desire, I am sure, to cause my job to be in jeopardy".
I think that hon. Members will agree that this very human appeal from this man might have elicited a more favourable response. At least one would think that comon courtesy would demand that the letter would be acknowledged. Mr. Smith received no reply to either of these letters. As far as I know, he has not yet received any reply from the landlady. He has been put to great inconvenience, because his work necessitates frequent use of the telephone. He has been put to the inconvenience of having to make regular use of telephone kiosks in the street outside.
The reason given by the landlady to the Post Office for her request was that Mr. Smith had not asked her permission to install the telephone in her house. I should like hon. Members to note that he had had a telephone for over ten years. In fact, he could not recall whether he had been given permission, perhaps orally, ten years before. He seemed to think that he had been given permission but he had no written proof of that. In any case, this lady had resided for quite a while—many years, in fact—in this district of Manchester and I think it is reasonable to assume that she knew very well that a telephone had been installed in this house for quite a number of years.
I should perhaps say at this stage that Mr. Smith was not the only tenant of this landlady to have a telephone removed from the premises. I have been informed of at least two others who have complained and wish to be associated with Mr. Smith's complaint. None of these people believe that the reason given by the landlady is the real one. Frankly, I do not either. They all say

that they have been good tenants, that they have done nothing to cause damage to the property, that they have paid their rent regularly, that they have not been guilty of misdemeanour and have not been nuisances to the neighbours. They seem to think that there is only one reason for the landlady taking this course of action, and they have drawn my attention to a letter which the landlady sent to Mr. Smith on 13th September, 1957. That letter reads:
It has been decided to give our tenants the opportunity of purchasing the premises they occupy. Would you therefore communicate with the undersigned and intimate whether you are interested ill purchasing No. 26 Stokes Street.
In the opinion of my constituents—and I think I share that opinion—this is a significant date. It was about the same time as the Rent Act, 1957, became operative. The house in which Mr. Smith lived was not decontrolled under that Act and Mr. Smith had no desire to purchase the house. He had informed the landlady accordingly. I understand that the other two tenants had informed the landlady in similar terms. It looks to them, therefore, as if the removal of their telephones may be directly attributed to their refusal to purchase.
I suggest to the hon. Lady that if this view is correct—and there are very strong grounds for suspecting that it is, although, in fairness to the landlady, I should add that she denies it—then the action of this lady becomes rather mean, petty and revengeful. When the House, for good or ill, passed the Rent Act, 1957, some hon. Members anticipated that there would be some kind of action of this character by some unscrupulous landlords. I think most people thought there might be some cases of this kind, but I doubt whether anybody on either side of the House ever anticipated that a mean, petty little action like this would be the instrument of torture to be adopted by any reasonable person.
Strangely enough, this evening when I went to the post office to see if there were any letters for me there was one from a person in Timperley, Cheshire. I know nothing of him. I have never seen him and have never heard from him before. Apparently he had heard about the Adjournment debate tonight and he has written to me on the subject.
I have not the time to quote extensively from the letter, but I would quote at any rate this part while I am on the point about the Rent Act. My correspondent says:
Since the Rent Act came into force recently, I think my relations have deteriorated with my landlady, with the above result.
The result to which he refers is that she also has refused to give him permission to have a telephone installed at his house in Timperley. In fact, she waited until the Post Office engineers had installed the telephone, and then when they were going away she said, "You must take this down. I have not given my permission." Very shortly afterwards she gave permission to another person in an adjacent house to have a party line, and to rub it in to this particular man the wires between the two houses went practically right in front of his bedroom windows.
I have quoted this letter—the hon. Lady will not know about it; I did not have it until today—as a further indication that, in my opinion, possibly the Rent Act has, after all, something to do with the stubbornness on the part of some owners of property in refusing to give the necessary permission. I leave that. I can only surmise that that is the motive, but it seems to me, personally, to be a clear one and I think other people agree.
The seriousness of the position, to my mind, lies in the fact that any person or persons can act so arbitrarily and unreasonably in these days. Surely it must be regarded by the House as reprehensible, to say the least of it, that amenities and facilities which are now in common usage are denied to citizens just by the whims and fancies of individuals. I am not sufficiently versed in the law to know whether the landlady could have prevented water pipes, electricity wires or any other modern facilities being laid in the house. I doubt it. Therefore, I ask myself why she should be in a position to do this in relation to the telephone.
I wish to make it clear that I make no complaint whatsoever in this debate against the Post Office either in Manchester or at Post Office headquarters. Those at the Post Office have made it clear to me in correspondence and in interviews that their sympathy lies completely

with the subscribers whose cases I have brought to their notice. I believe that the action taken by the landlady to whom I have referred was the first in the recollection of one of the longest serving officers in the telephone manaber's office in Manchester. He had never heard of anything of the kind in the thirty-five years of his experience.
The only failing that I can attribute to the Post Office, if it is a failing which can be attributed to it, is that it has so long allowed itself to be enslaved by out-dated regulations. I should have thought that by now somebody would have had a spark of an idea that this sort of thing should not happen in the year of grace 1960. I must say that the present Postmaster-General's predecessor did his utmost, through quite unusual ways which are characteristic of him, to try to get the lady to see sense.
Quite certainly she has been acting quite insensibly, and I had to come to the conclusion, after all the correspondence and after all the talks and everything else, that I must ventilate on behalf of these three constituents of mine in Manchester and now on behalf of the fourth person from the constituency, I believe, of the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport) what is becoming quite a serious matter.
I had hoped that as a result of the debate yesterday I might have been able to suggest some remedies as well as voice complaints, but on the Ruling which you gave this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I cannot do that just yet. However, I think that the hon Lady and her right hon. Friend have a fair idea of what remedial measures can be taken, and I hope that she and her right hon. Friend will take the earliest possible opportunity of putting the matter right, because I feel quite certain that if something is not done pretty soon there will be a public outcry against these little Hitlers who do these mean and petty things in such a revengeful way.
I would finally ask the hon. Lady to bring to the notice of the Minister of Housing and Local Government my references to the possibility of the influence of the Rent Act, 1957, on people of this mentality, and perhaps he also will keep in mind some of these things when he is reconsidering his legislation.

1.13 a.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Miss Mervyn Pike): I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) for the manner in which he has presented this problem and for the generous way in which he has recognised the attempts made by the Post Office to bring about an amicable solution to the difficulty. The hon. Gentleman has very fully described the events which led up to this dispute between landlord and tenant and the background against which it is taking place. He has done everything possible to find a reasonable solution to the problem and we are grateful to him for raising the matter.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I am no lawyer, but I would like to attempt to give, clearly and as briefly as possible, some description of the legal position. The legal position is that the Post Office has a statutory obligation under the Telegraph Act, 1863, to obtain the consent of the landlord before a telephone is supplied to a tenant. In practice, however, we act on the assumption that the landlord has no objection and we do not formally obtain the landlord's written consent in the very large number of cases where telephones are provided for tenants. Indeed, when a householder asks us for telephone service, we do not usually know whether he is a tenant or the owner of the house. Of course, if we had to put a pole or wires on any property which was not in the tenant's own occupation, we should ask the owner for his consent.
So, in the ordinary case, the tenant gets his telephone and he continues to have a telephone service unless and until the landlord takes positive action to require us to remove it—an action which he is entitled to take under Section 4 of the Telegraph Act, 1892. In this connection, perhaps I should explain that even if the Post Office sought the landlord's written consent before installing the telephone on the tenant's property it would not be reasonable for us to expect him to give us consent in perpetuity and he could terminate the consent on notice at any time.
The Post Office provides a telephone service for a tenant and puts in all the necessary apparatus. Then the landlord requires the Post Office to remove the telephone—it may be many years

afterwards, as in the present case. Section 4 of the Telegraph Act, 1892, and Section 1 of the Telegraph (Construction) Act, 1916, have provided for these circumstances and under the former Section the landlord, if he is aggrieved, is entitled to require the removal of the apparatus. That causes a "difference" to arise between him and the Postmaster-General, and there is a procedure for settling the difference by an application to the county court. I shall return to this procedure in a moment, but the point I want to make now is that unless the Postmaster-General makes a successful application to the county court he has no legal alternative but to remove the telephone, if the landlord insists.
In instances of this kind, which, fortunately, are rare, the Post Office does everything possible to dissuade the landlord from insisting that the tenant's telephone should be taken away, and I am glad to say that its efforts usually meet with success. In the last resort, however, if the landlord insists, the Postmaster-General, as I have said, has the right to go to the county court under the Acts of 1892 and 1916 to settle the difference.
The county court judge can, if he thinks fit, give his consent to the tenant's telephone being kept on the premises or, if it has been removed, being replaced. But the judge cannot give this consent unless he is satisfied that the landlord's requirement was contrary to the public interest. The last time that the Post Office took proceedings of this kind against a private landlord was in 1922. In those days, these cases went to the Railway and Canal Commission, not to the county court as at present.
The Commission at that time decided that the refusal of consent was not contrary to the public interest unless it would have meant that a considerable body of persons would be deprived of telephone service. The Department appealed to the Court of Appeal, but lost there, too. The Court of Appeal said that the public interest was purely a matter of fact for the Railway and Canal Commission and it would not upset the Commission's finding. The result of that case was to convince the Post Office that its right to make an application under the 1892 and 1916 Acts was not one which could safely be relied on. In fact, there has never been


an application under these Acts in a landlord and tenant case since the decisions in 1922.
As I have said, these disputes are very rare, and, in the majority of cases which do arise, the landlord sees reason when the Post Office approaches him and offers to do everything it can to meet his objections. Sometimes, the landlord objects to the way in which the Post Office has fixed the telephone wires—by a bracket on the side of the house, for instance. Objections of this kind can often he overcome by our rearranging the wiring.
The present case is not like that because, as far as we have been able to find out, the landlord is not objecting to the telephone plant as such and really has no quarrel with the Post Office. We have done everything we can to persuade her to agree to the telephone remaining, and, indeed, as the hon. Member has said, the former Postmaster-General tried, without success, to have a personal talk with her, in Liverpool, I believe.
We are, however, anxious to do everything possible to reach a just settlement, and my right hon. Friend is prepared to look at the case again, and, if the three tenants still want to have their telephone back if they can, my right hon. Friend will seek legal advice on the prospect of an application to the county court for the necessary consent in place of that of the landlord.
On the situation in general, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we have already given considerable thought to the suggestions he has made. These are very complex problems, and there are various technical difficulties. We have to bear in mind the need to preserve the proper rights of owners. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his constructive approach to the whole question, and I assure him that we shall continue to keep these points in mind.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes past One o'clock.